A woman
sits
in the cool marble alcove
facing the bleak
summer morning sun.

She has lived
maybe fifty, maybe sixty years,
and her hair shines solid white.
Her thin brown arms and legs
end
gloved and braceleted
with intricate, heavy
ropes of veins.

Elegantly clad in black and white,
finished
to the tips of her ears with black enamel buttons,
the tips of her fingers with red enamel paint,
her red lips,
her glossy black pumps and lashes,
her gleaming gold encircled throat, wrists, knuckles,
she is every inch a grown up
lady.

Yet there
is a certain something
in the way she closes her eyes to the kiss of sunlight,
in the way she slopes her legs,
knees together, feet apart, one ankle crooked outward,
in the way she rubs her own warm skin,
loving it,
loving the sensation of living in it,
and there is a certain something
in the posture of wonder
embracing her mouth
which reveal
the eleven-year-old, awkward, anxious filly of a girl
she once was
and still is, somewhere,
and never feels she left behind.

Aging is something
happening
to other people.

by Sara, copyright 1999, all rights reserved