Appointment

Seventeen days. That's when I will have
told him I'd schedule the doctor. It's a goal.

I say 17 because I relish how it sounds,
savor its dissolve on my tongue. Hour surpassing

hour, passing quietly as my mother.
Without pain. Without anyone knowing why. 

We speak of growing older as if it were already ours.
Like we can sit it on the examining room table. 

Undress it. Open its mouth and tell it to say ah. Stick 
a lifetime down its throat. Like it won't be swallowed whole. 

Copyright Katherine Mercurio Gotthardt, September 7, 2024, all rights reserved