in our language of euphemism and shorthand,
first we get older and then we get old.
we go there and do that and get the t-shirt.
if we like it enough we go and do and get again.

when you’ve already been older and are heading for old,
life’s increasing limitations elbow their way in,
so you stroll along the strand rather than running tirelessly through it
on the way to something else,

or get quietly smashed instead of raising hell.
you turn in your young-person card
and start referring to young adults as “kids.”
in our language of euphemism and shorthand,

we “slow down” as we “get on”
though we tell ourselves “fifty is the new thirty”
and other nonsense,
and some of us take desperate measures:

doctors saw at the skin of our faces
or inject paralyzing toxin into it, or both,
and sometimes the masquerade works,
and sometimes it doesn’t.

we get offered “rewards” that are enticements
for the dispensation of our disposable and not-so-disposable cash.
we get mail about cremations and cruises
and we get fading music.

the cradle rocks and the grave is still.
in between, the speed limit will go from 75 to 15
and there’ll be a wiggly pointed line on a yellow background.
it is then that we find out what we’re made of.