Silver Sneaker Moment By Eric Ashford

The bones are loud and heavy
they don’t like exercise anymore.
The treadmill chugs along
while vertigo topples unready toes.
Nothing can push these bones along,
time has filled them with concrete,
the rubble of marathons once run.
A young woman sprinting effortlessly
beside me smirks my way
as I stumble through a flat-footed mile.
Maybe she cannot see her future yet
while mine is clearly
painted on a wall I will soon hit.