Age

Age

Enjoying the deep breath I take when I realize I am not alone,
knowing I survived another lonely old day, not caring
that my hands hurt from writing this poem over and over

and over again, not feeling the buzz from the expresso,
knowing only that the girl whose eyes I just met thinks I am too old
and knowing she’s right and besides I’m a happily married man.

Happily.

Such a long and funny word, not only in the sound but yes, in the thought.
The thought, in any language so elusive, such an adverb to strive for.
The sound, dactylic in English and who knows in Coptic, except

the three hundred or so who still speak it, merely to keep it alive,
given that it includes characters not even from the list of twenty-six
we all assume contain all the thoughts and sounds in the world.

The world.

The universe, smaller than we ever thought, so small indeed that
in a trillion years we will have outgrown it, out-paced its expansion,
ran out of space in more ways that we know, leaving behind our waste

and thus this breath I take today is so deep, reminding me I am alive,
young or old, taken or free, buzzing or not, alone, alive, unlike
the Coptic language, or the poor old universe in a trillion and one years.