Ode to the Body at Forty

O body, you magnificent disaster, you creak now getting out of chairs and take the stairs a half-beat slower than the body you remember being. But look what you have done: you carried children up to bed when they were heavy with the world's first sleep. You held your ground in hospital corridors at 2 a.m. when someone needed standing. Your hands—those rough, ridiculous instruments— have built a bookshelf, failed at soufflé, held someone's face between them and said stay. Your knees remember every garden, every frozen pitch, every kitchen floor where you knelt to mop or pray or both. You are not what you were. You are what you've done. And the scars? Each one a door you walked through and kept walking. The grey hair? Every strand a year you were alive. O body, splendid wreck, my oldest friend— I'm keeping you. I'm keeping you right to the end.