(ESA/Hubble & NASA, CC BY 4.0)

 

Up. Down.
Words without meaning.

I only know there’s no need
to work hard to push blood to my head,

no need for these muscles, these bones.
Here, they are a burden.

I let them thin.
They flow away in my urine.

From now on, I’ll float.

I can barely remember what it was like
to rise, to walk,

the effort it took
to clamor to my feet.

Bill Ayres is working in his seventh bookstore. His poems have appeared recently in Plainsongs, The Windhover, Bird’s Thumb, and the Anglican Theological Review.

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Published in the December 14, 2018 issue: View Contents
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