The deeds I can’t get out of my gray head
are those of the lithe polyamorous.
Oddly, that thought gives way to a darker one:
a sad, furious and muscular nun.
Like Christ in the temple, she’d start a ruckus
and soon end any frolic in the bed.
It’s envy, I suppose. Getting out of bed
is a hard process after eighty years.
Sitting, checking what aches, what’s stiff, what’s numb,
then standing in a shaky crouch, not plumb,
lest a level floor conceal high-wire fears
that end in a pratfall, by muscles misled.
Nyx, goddess of the night, studied the tortoise
to teach the once spry what the rigor of mort is.
