Oh Mortality – a poem by Kim Malinowski

Oh Mortality,

I am left graying. My amber
blush swept away with last year’s leaves.

My smile is my smile, but there are folds and lines.
Time steals my molecules and you my energy.

I keep watch on the longest night of the year,
my candles counting the seconds in pools of wax.

The Wheel turns and so does my body—a slow
moody dance that ends in a tilted,
shuffling waltz.

My hair has a strand of silver—do I burn or bury it?

When do we begin to call ourselves old?
Mother, Maiden, Crone?

If I run from you, will you still whisper of Autumn leaves,
leather satchels, porch swings with tucked in blankets?

When I am old, will I only know it with the aches of my bones?

And then there is this damned hair.
When it is silver, do I shave it off,
or do I let the rainbow dangle
…………….like the moon
………………………….on the edge of the Big Dipper?

Kim Malinowski earned her B.A. from West Virginia University and her M.F.A. from American University. She studies with The Writers Studio. Her chapbook Death: A Love Story was published by Flutter Press. Her work has appeared in Faerie Magazine, War, Literature, and the Arts, Mythic Delirium, and others.