Laura Sheahen

LONG RHEUMATISM

Turn your back
Slowly, the training-master says:
There will come a day
When it will hurt to do so.

Coordinate muscles
Responding,
I smile for you, limbs
Supple and forgiving—

Body, I look at you with love now—
The day will come:

Lash on the shoulders
Desert of years
Bowing, succumbing—

I will feel you resist, be unable
To throw up my hands in dismay.
I will know you stiffly polite.
I know
You are not mine to keep.