Old Alone

It isn’t that my thumb tenses when I hold a knife

Or that my knees can sense

The coming of the rains

It’s not the white hairs that wave hello

Or the mismanagement of money hard earned

It is the silence in between the laughs

The look of the night sky,

The breeze the blows through maturing bones

As I carry in the groceries.

I’m getting older and I must accept it.

The chirping of endless crickets

That sound muffled over the whirl of the highway

It is the silence in between text messages

The fascination with wine

It is the frustration with technology

And the gravity that makes my belly sag

But mostly it is the isolation of moments

That should be spent with others

It is the need to capture the instances

That I alone bear witness to

It is the stretch of summer nights

Waiting for the exhaustion to shut my mind down

It is the look in my dog’s eyes

As he lays at the foot of my bed

Wondering why he can’t make it

To my pillow.