memento.

somewhere in the not so
distant past a line moved up
without my stepping
the ones ahead grew
quiet, then grey
and gone, and i in turn
grew as the ones ahead

i read the lines on older faces
the way i read the weather
from inside, behind glass,
until the glass turned
and someone read mine,
kindly,
as if i were the weather

yet nothing in me
changed. i am still the age
i was when i first noticed
i was an age at all –
and so too the old man
seated upon the steps; and behind
every grey face
is that first apartment
listening for a parent’s car
that isn’t coming

the line still moves up
certain
i know where it goes