On the Wonder of Reaching 70

Old age

Tastes of memory,

-of snowflakes 

and Guiness -

frosty syrup softening 

December gray of hair 

and dreams

Warming waning bones.

Wrapped,

Tinseled,

Beribboned and bestrewn

In cloves and wistfulness

Wrinkling sated tongue with 

dusk’s sweet grief

A gleam on papery skin

-So thin-

that blood and breath

mingle in a singular sigh

So brief replete.