Under the Knife

a poem of stress, dread, and acceptance

So many goals deleted like spam,
never reached or never started,
a life of failures or one of adjustments,
shifting gears on shifting sands,
detours and roundabouts,
back-tracking and full speed ahead,
rarely reaching a finish line.

Lucky to be healthy for 65-plus,
can’t take credit, maybe it's the genes,
but luck is trickling away like
sand in an hourglass;
a goal to die old without ever
going under the knife,
without ever being sliced opened
and sewed shut, stapled, or glued.

Gallbladder had different ideas —
Who said organs can make decisions?
Now I stress over another goal gone,
over anesthesia and punctures
and what comes next —
over losing something that was
there for a reason and soon won’t be.

Stressed over recovery and work
and all that won’t get done,
but most of all, that goal of
not going under the knife,
not being invaded by steel
and a mini-camera,
capturing what was mine for 65-plus,
abolishing and eradicating
a part of me I’d like to keep
but might not miss.

Another goal crumbled and thrown away,
life’s a compilation of switches and swaps,
a work-in-progress that isn’t always progressive,
changes that aren’t choices,
adjustments and rearrangements,
losing what was good and is no longer,
accepting that going under the knife
isn’t a goal lost but an opportunity gained
to feel better than I should at 65-plus

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