How she feels it

By Camincha

She feels it in her bones. No, not only in her bones.

She feels it in her skin. She feels it in her eyes.

The years that have passed by.


She hears her father's pride in his voice when he said: You

don't need glasses like your brother, do you?

What good eyesight you have. She was thirteen.


Just a little girl. So little then. In so many ways, naive, cocky.

She knew it all. She knew then that she knew it all.

Just like she knows now she doesn't know anything.


Yes, her eyes don't see as well as they used to.

They hurt when she strains them in the late

hours of the day before turning on the lights.

And her hands 'cause they hurt when she tries to get it

perfect: the needle work, the crochet, the poem.


She feels it in her hair. Not as dark anymore. And remembers the

neighbor down the street and her grey hair. Had her daughters pull

them one by one paying them a penny for each one they pulled.


And remembers she smiled. She's so glad didn't pass judgement.

She just smiled. ‘Cause as she likes to say, she has them now,

grey hairs. And doesn't want them pulled. But,

she wants them dyed. And she can laugh at herself for that.


She wants them dyed. For she feels, she feels the years

that have passed by. She feels them in the way her neck

creaks and cracks. Just like this house. When she’s lying quietly,

she can hear the house creak and crack, and almost

groan.

Camincha is a pen name for a writer living in the Bay Area of California.