“Genetic Curve”

  

c. 2026 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(10-26)

 

Stalled by a genetic curve

Some say this is an inherited judgment that I deserve

But from wherever it comes

This day is done

I used to move from one place to another

Stealthy and easy on my feet, always under cover

A special agent, searching for clues

But now I don’t know what to do

The bend of my knees is uncontrolled

Limbs going wide when I languish in the cold

Stiff and sore, slouched on my spot

Crouching in a shadow that Father Time begot

Gray strands on my brow

I want to find the exit, but don’t know how

A petition to heaven is made

But the lines of communication seem seriously frayed

And there is a peg in my ear

Inclined to listen, yet unable to hear

I need to know what password will suffice

To cause the gatekeeper to key his device

And let me step over the threshold

A commoner, turned bold

I conjure up such images in a watercolor splash

With my brush tip tracing the lines of a carnival crash

Which I am certain will come

When my balance is surrendered for a pricey sum

Last in the queue

Last one permitted to be going through

This is the boardwalk where I step along

Counting the tiles like verses of a song

In a succession of tones

A journey that I must take alone

Arthritic, and fraught with muscular fits

A refugee held in a cavernous pit

Voice calling upward against the walls, for relief

A ritual that transpires while in my sleep

One that causes me to toss the bedcovers aside

And beg God not to be denied

The genetic code contained therein

Is a sequence summoned by spirits who rule my kin

As much a part of what I become

As the names of mothers, daughters and sons

Once, long ago, my birth was considered to be

A miracle of life, a planting of the seed

Yet now, when the garden has grown so well

I have only a cautionary tale to tell

An opening of the puzzle box

A tinkering with mechanical locks

Which in time, will reveal

That this breaking of the seal

Has brought me to the point of cursing my coil

How much better it would have been to slumber in the soil

For a longer passage of days

I did not germinate and mature

Did not become fully assured

Of a long run toward the horizon

In a marathon, neither lost or won

And I must weep

With these secrets to keep

Fear of falling when I need to stand

At the crest of a new endeavor, to be taken in hand

Why does the clock tick and chime, when time itself is still?

At the hour when I surrender my will

Stiffly stooped over, in the manner of a mortal relic

Not ready to embrace a mood, angelic

Over this graduation to the portrait gallery

Where those of antiquity

Are remembered in palette hues

Swaths of color, too quickly passing through

Breaths breathed and exhaled

It is the season to trim my sails