Demographic Shift

The girl at the desk has a badge

with a date of birth that feels like a typo.

I calculate the math against the wall

and realize I was already tired of bars

when she was learning how to breathe.

I climb onto the high exam table.

The sanitary paper crinkles under me

with the sound of a thousand dry leaves.

It’s loud in the silence of the clinic,

a white-noise warning that I’m the one

with the most history to lose.