before red
begets gold,
the whole world
knows what it's like
to feel old.
There are those
who rose willingly
and pirouetted from their beds,
and then those
who were chosen—flung forthwith
to the floor.
And yet somehow
they all find themselves
arriving here together
to comprise, for just
one moment. the very core
of re-arrival.
Every man,
every woman,
every creature who knows
knows too, just as surely,
that they've been
this way before.
