What My Body Won't Do

I dropped something under the couch

and bent down to reach,

but my knee wouldn't go that far.

Wouldn't bend. Wouldn't teach

my body how to do what it used to do

without thinking. I tried again.

The joint just stayed where it was,

and I knew then

I'm older.

Not sick, not broken,

just older. The kind of old

that shows up in small moments,

the kind that gets told

through what your body won't do

anymore. I used the broom

instead, fished it out from the gloom

under the couch. It flew

across the floor.

My partner didn't see.

Nobody witnessed me

being unable. The door

to youth closing quietly.

No fanfare. No big goodbye.

Just a knee that said no,

and me, not quite sure why

this bothered me so much—

that my body is leaving me,

that I'll never know when the last time was

I could kneel.