My Santiago

The Gloves are off

All guarantees are off the table,

And as dinner conversations on balmy nights inevitably

idle to bygone climes,

we travel backwards,

Knowing – only - that there is more behind than ahead.

The quest intensifies for change in

appearance,

Although we know – full well - that we will simply continue to spiral and age,

To look older and grow still frailer.

Catching glimpses in mirrors,

Of our aged parents - in us,

We sense elusive uncertainties in their eyes,

That element of doubt (that grows with age),

That we just may not reach that destination;

After all they told us,

After all the promises!

The slight sagging of muscles,

The subtlest (and cruellest) of betrayals,

(Despite years of pressing weights)

Imminent jowls, crevasses under eyes,

And residual tufts on the bare – baked lunar landscape

of a receding forehead,

And the monk’s bald spot!

Yet we go on pretending that

Mirrors don’t lie, as we