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There is a little separation in her back joints where Africa and Europe
used to be connected but now
they are less than friends let alone intimates.
More like distant cousins…and that is painful
so she tries to relieve it with knees
to chest, rolling to one side then the other.
Same kind of little rolls and stretches she did as a baby.
They still work after fifty years,
lots of things still work after all that time
like laughing and roughing up the dog with little made up
words like “Atta girl, yeah!! Ah go… ah go!
That brand of fun and love hasn’t disappeared for all these years,
just changed dogs since
they don’t live as long as we do.
A poor planning idea on the part of God, she thinks.
Same as teeth—why
don’t they last as long as people do?
Remembering those beautiful small and strong
brown people of India that rush over to carry
her whale-sized bags at the train station. Do they
wonder why a relatively large
white woman with thunder thighs can’t carry her own bags?