(from the NaPoWriMo prompt: write a poem about something that returns.) [Just like last year, I got behind at the end. No matter, it is apparently just as hard to keep up when one is "remote" teaching as it is when one is with students in school. I will, just like last year, complete the task, but I probably won't post them to social media. It is May, time to move on.]
The last time I woke up
was like all the other times before.
I had to pee.
And then I brushed my teeth, because
I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall
asleep again and everything still worked—
my hands moved as I wished
and my legs too. My ankles
pivoted under the varicose veins
and the rust-brown cellulitis scar
and the arthritis
reminded me to take my pills that
reminded me of the doctors visit that
reminded me of
the swelling and limping,
that led to the morning ritual of my bones
telling me, “You are alive.”
Yes, it was like all the others, a return
to up and walking and talking and being.