Spell for a Poet Getting On
May your hipbones never die.
May you hear the ruckus of mountains
in the Kansas of your age, and when
you go deaf, may you go wildly deaf.
May the neighbors arrive, bringing entire aviaries.
When the last of your hair is gone, may families
lovelier than you can guess colonize
the balds of your head.
May your thumbstick grow leaves,
May the nipples of your breasts drip wine,
And when, leaning into the grass, you watch
The inky sun vanish into the flat page
of the sea, may you join your lawn chair,
each of you content
that nothing is wise forever.
—Lola Haskins
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From The Rimbenders, Anhinga 2001