We get weird, extra hair.  Moles turn
up unannounced like the relative who
scares us with their honesty.

Wrinkles and gray hair—yes, we’re on
the way, physically going back to dust,
so decide now whether to panic or not.

Western doctors are not a must, but the
way some pitch themselves, you’d never know
there was an end to white coat wisdom and clout—

You decide on surgery to shave years back,
then have a complication, because the
drug they used malfunctioned, and the cut

they made got infected.  Maybe we should
have accepted the age we were on instead
of calling God a know-it-all moron.

We can run around, detect bad things
to fix, or… ignore the bad—go on a Mary
Baker Eddy rant, an Ella Wheeler Wilcox spat,

spouting the dream to be complaint-free.

Ahhh!  Maybe gratitude is the key.

Dementia, like cancer and diabetes—a myth
of ingratitude, and not being prepared to let
your body expire with grace.

Look at your family’s face.  Let them thank you,
as they gather around your bed; in this you
realize that death itself is mythological fancy.

We are here forever in our ideas and children,
our grandchildren carrying us forth to the
next generation, and to theirs!

Pull your loved one out of strangers’ arms
if you care!  They are being turned and changed,
drugged and tamed. Then you check in

every once in a while, grimace and pay a bill.
Confront “death” and convert it to a beloved
sacrament of all who get to live here.