I’m sitting in a therapy chair

between exercises to improve my balance.

Here comes, down the hall,

trudging slowly,

pulling his therapist who’s holding

an elastic cord tied to the fella’s waist,

an old guy, like me,

only his strength’s nearly gone

while only my balance is just a bit shaky.

I offer a fist salute to my comrade-in-aging.

He answers with a touch-fist-pump.

He whispers to me as he passes, “Thanks, Brother.”

Ten minutes later, here he comes round again,

struggling against the cord

and his therapists weight.

He can beat the pull of the cord,

but not of the inevitable.

Yet, he grins at me, anyway,

tears in his eyes.

It’s not called “the end of the line” for nothing.

Still, he struggles past me, tugging his therapist along.

He’s winning by trying.

But all that remains,

truly,

is his dying.

Still, he comes.