A Sense Of Spin

One

I told the nurse as I was wheeled out of the hospital

that I felt I had aged five years since being there.

Gaining years is not as good a thing when you’re in

your seventies as it was when you were too young

to do much of anything but wait til you were older.

Two

But here we stand on a planet that’s spinning and

travelling through space around a star that’s

moving itself in  an orbit within a galaxy that’s

moving too - away from some and toward other

galaxies – everything is escaping but from what?

Three

My generation lived through 78 rpm records,

45 rpms and finally high-fidelity, long playing

records that spun at only 33 1/3^rd rpm.  For all

of these the tone arm always worked itself back

inward to the center, distancing itself from any

possibility sense of escape.

Four

My young Thai nurse speaks no English and

belongs to the MP3 generation, the solid

state no spin generation.  She locks the wheels

and flips up the foot pads of my wheelchair. 

I’m free to leave but I am still sick.  I need help

just to stand.

Five

Beanie was once my name but my past lives

in a virtual cloud now that is no more real to me

than angels playing harps. The old and infirm

sense motions and spins the young have yet

to learn. At the bottom of the hospital steps,

I let go of a railing for the open passenger

side door.  For a moment, I am freestanding

and free.

FG           4/30/2016