~MARILYN
TAYLOR~
RONDEAU:
OLD
WOMAN
WITH CAT
Osteoporosis (one of life's indignities)
is such a splendid name for the
disease—
all those little o's, holes in the
bone
where the rain gets in, rendering
a crone
like me defective, porous as Swiss
cheese.
I'm riddled at the hips and knees,
roundsided as parentheses
since my shrunken spine has known
osteoporosis—
and my extremities
have shriveled into lacy filagrees,
breakable as glass on stone.
Naked at the window ledge I drone
to my sleek, supple Siamese:
osteoporosis.
© by Marilyn Taylor
