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