I’m Gettin’ Old by Carlin Corsino

“You really love 

to have all your holes plugged?” 

she asked. And she was dead right in regards to 

my head in my sleep. Ear plugs, a sleep 

mask, and now CPAP device to keep me from slipping

to sweet slumber of eternal dreams 

when my lungs collapse in the night. A bellows 

for bellows. A burner for the balloons

which crumple from the night sky as the pilot

laudanum dreams, drifting on winds of dark

constellations to the north star as those paired 

swallows whistle surfactant, blissfully ignorant

of their dysfunction. 

My bones now perotic and muscles empty

bags of sand, standing so slowly that

time itself stands still. The laws 

of physics and my skeletal self play

a cruel joke on whichever specter 

controls my second hand.  I swing

my legs with the gusto of a creature 

so well versed in inertia, look her straight

in the eye and say “Yup, 

I’m gettin’ old.” 

She calls me old (now)