Just the One Thread

The bathroom light, it shows too much,

a harsh, bright glare, no soft disguise.

And in the brush, I felt the clutch

of something new, before my eyes.

A single strand, a stubborn white,

against the dark, a silver gleam.

I pulled it free, held it to light,

a foreign thread within the stream.

Not a mistake, or just a trick,

of light on brown, but truly there.

A tiny, sharp, insistent prick,

of what the future has to bear.

I pressed it flat against my thumb,

so thin, so frail, yet starkly bold.

A quiet truth, that had become

a story, suddenly quite old.