It should be one hell of a moment
the kind where fireworks mark mandatory celebration
and the champagne cork knocks an eye out.
Naw, that's not right.
It should be an epiphany
that halts you dead in the tracks of your every day practicality
head slapping double take - back and forth,
yesterday and tomorrow no longer at odds
because the day has come
oh my friends, the day has COME...
when you have more past than future.
But there is no rite of passage in this slow decline
We move toward it, then past it
with nothing more than a nod to another day spent
the same way yesterday was spent
and the day before that
because we just don't know
can't know
the date or time
when our end is closer than our beginning.
I've crossed over now.
I don't know when, exactly, but
I'll not live this age doubled.
I was born in April,
born again in February,
and somewhere between presents and cake
the candles started burning backwards.
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