Old breasts can still remember from a distance of 30 years
that sensation in the nipples that you feel when your child cries.
Old hearts can still remember the way they used to skip
when a certain someone walked into the room.
Old eyes can still envision the colors of the countryside;
the autumn we've not seen for many years.
Old melodies still linger, and old fingers still remember
how to play her favorite hymns, though her feet no longer walk.
But old brains begin to stutter: Is it now, or was it then?
Is this my husband or my son? This cat, so like the one I lost at 12...
Old muscles, filled with memories of wounds and great adventures,
will still flinch or warm at a touch, and twitch until we take that final breath.
Old friends will still remember us, our families may mourn,
but the love we brought into the world lives on.
