a tree splits afternoon sunbeams into warm fingers on my arm   the sky seems ceiling close I could touch those clouds   wind is in the middle of an afternoon nap   nothing needs to move to feel that the world is alive   and in a moment before a desire pulls me to my feet or my mind jumpstarts and transports me elsewhere I see it, in a skip of time   this place is paradise

wrinkles come from a few thousand frowns and a few thousand more smiles, if you’re lucky   hundreds of squints from bright suns crumples of pain, furrows from sadness laughing crinkles, twisted funny faces   all, skin-squished accounts a unique landscape of emotion the hills and valleys of a life   whispers of beauty might be heard from a surgically tightened face, we are all judged by our covers,   why put the manuscript back in the drawer when the memoir of you is already i

I nod each finger in sequence down the digit line as fast as I can -   scale of C played on an air piano like I first learned on a real piano   there is ouch to my speed discomfort in the eighth notes pain in the sixteenths   I’m trapped in ballads the bittersweet kind the kinds that play like a pillow not for sleeping   I flex my fingers again and surrender   arthritis   I live in a slowing world of melodies, the simplest of whole notes, slipping through time