Senescence

Scurf dangles from my eyelash     i flick     mottled

skin sticks to the wall     wet and winking     like

cooked spaghetti     a Rorschach      no one will eat

my eggs once thick and yearning          blown-out

stuffed with confetti     but never mind     days turned

upside down still     tick

i turn my wrinkles inside out     frail bones move around

more easily in loose skin     then buzz      half my hair

to remember left from right

who knows if the bra on the doorknob is     empty or full?

the hook and eye touch secretly behind my back      my

best lipstick breaks     i’m contemplating     veins

cascading     unsupervised     like a measuring tape

belt or a noose?     ha!     vain still rhymes with pain

each breath grows closer together     thirst snags on socks

too big for my woes        i wonder     which pocket

holds the sweetest seeds?     tell me I’m not alone     and

why can’t i climb from the calendar just this once?

Sherry Shahan is a teal-haired septuagenarian who creates art in a small California beach town. Her poems live in national and international literary journals and anthologies. She holds an MFA  from Vermont College of Fine Arts and has been nominated for The Pushcart Prize in Poetry (2024) and The Pushcart Prize in Short Fiction (2024).