Those kids who age prematurely:
at seven already sclerotic & gray.
& I too! Though at first glance
I seem a man long past his youth,
just a day or two back I was a boy
tossing a softball in the schoolyard.
This wretched, incurable curse!
One moment of sheer, exuberant joy
& the next you’re deaf, bent, gasping
for breath, flesh yellowed & splotched,
& hands that never stop shaking.