Ode to My Joints

They’ve chipped away at my bones—
the ones that make a fuss, go on strike,
sabotage the works.
An oil and lube job can’t mend
the missing cartilage or soothe
the erosion of bone on bone.
The constant grind,
the percussive instrumental
that played each time I took a step,
bent, or stretched a limb
was the last straw.

So they had to go,
pieces of me,
and not so small,
not a toenail or a gallbladder
or a useless molar, but
the archaeological remains of a life,
knees and hip bones sliced, removed,
replaced by replicas that cremation
will not consume.
Grafted, screwed on, reassembled,
the new with the old,
the natural with metal and plastics,
mine and… not mine

yet

Ode to My Joints

I sometimes contemplate
the debris of my body.
I imagine those worn joints
circling the globe
in the cold emptiness of space,
errant fragments that I have
surrendered to oblivion,
lost pieces of the puzzle
that once was me.