Everybody I know is older than they used to be and everyone I know feels old though not everybody is old, just older than before, to them this is oldness. Many just bloomed compared to me. No
not everybody got old, now the question is do I still know them? What do you call it when they are palpable when I touch where they touched, smell a fragrance of them vanilla, or smoke or lavender oil and laugh at what they joked and fumble with them in their gaffes. What do I call cousin Sharon tying back wild curls, packing floral hippie shifts, here, last year, picking out what I should wear. And do I still know Macky who ushered my life into opera and now, only by thinking can I hear the gusto of his baritone laugh fill a room with rosy warmth. Here they are in the edges, curves and core of my belly where they’re so young, where they stay that way.
Carol Levin’s An Undercurrent of Jitters is just out from MoonPath Press. She published two other full volumes of poetry Confident Music Would Fly Us to Paradise (MoonPath Press) and Stunned By the Velocity (Pecan Grove Press), as well as chapbooks from Pecan Grove Press and Finishing Line Press. She’s an Editorial Assistant at the journal, Crab Creek Review and teaches The Breathing Lab / Alexander Technique, in Seattle. http://www.the-breathing-lab.com
Copyright 2018, Carol Levin