To outlive Shakespeare and Queen Elizabeth,
only to be cut in half, declared the oldest animal
that once lived. Like so many artists
gaining posthumous fame. Celebrity clam,
christened Ming—counting its rings, what clues
can scientists find to stop climate change,
or better yet, aging? The new Botox, four hundred years
of seafloor boredom injected into our foreheads.
The ancient Egyptians used Frankincense oil.
The Chinese, ginko. My friend blew $30 on eye cream,
says, we’ll see if it works in ten years. Just blink
and we’re halfway through the month, living
weekend to weekend. Deathbed haiku:
the quahog’s last words--water siphoned, spit out.
Translation: we’re all filter feeders.
Take what comes. What if
we enjoyed our bodies now
instead of mourning what no longer fits.
Jeanne Calment, who lived to be a record 122
said, “I have but one wrinkle, and I’m sitting on it.”
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I could tinker with this indefinitely, but I'm curious to see what's working and what's not.
Also, I'm a bit behind on my comments. It's been a crazy week at work, but I hope to catch up soon.
2 comments:
I love it! Other than the maybe a line break change on "or better yet, aging? The new Botox, four hundred years/of seafloor boredom injected into our foreheads" I don't see anything worth tinkering with. I would change the line break to read "or better yet, aging? The new Botox/four hundred year of seafloor boredom injected/into"...
this is great! the only line that I stalled on, was
"the ancient Egyptians used Frankincence oil"
and it was because your meter/your music which was ticking along so nicely, got thrown out...
you could say "oil of Frankincense", but that's awkward syntactically (?) still, it keeps your nice motor thrumming... just a thought
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