O.L.D.

“You suffer from O.L.D.”
The doctor tosses off this disclaimer
to discount my newest symptom.

I’ve started to cringe at friends
a decade or more older, whose gait
has slowed, their balance challenged,
leading to frequent falls.

It’s a watershed moment to mourn
what we see in the mirror. It’s not
the creases or wrinkles, or the flabby neck.
It’s the failures, the new pace,

s l o w ed way down, muscles that refuse
to engage. Getting up from a chair
is a major feat. The mind has deep
loopholes, refuses to send up words,

forgets how they’re spelled, pauses
dumbfounded in the middle of a sentence,
as if we’re lost, not recalling
where we were headed. Conversations

fill with worry, resistance
to these changes. The only hope
is laughter with a passel of friends,
who nod knowingly, join us in that field.

Miriam Bassuk has been published in Snapdragon, Between the Lines, Poets West Literary Journal, and 3 Elements Review. She was one of the featured poets in the digital portion of the WA 129 project sponsored by Tod Marshall, the Washington State poet laureate. As an avid journal writer, she has been charting the journey of living in these uncertain times beyond Covid.