15 Apr Expiration

What sound does your tongue

make as you lap at the fountain of youth?

Pursed and patient you wait for it to envelope you,

In its coolness and glow.

After patiently waiting, water ripples at the touch of stained hands.

Echoing deep throughout the vessels,

Undulations around pickled fingers that dare to grasp the liquid in his hands.

It seeps through webbings and refuses to take form for him.

His greedy hunger encourages him to lick up the water as it recedes from his palms.

Almost as if running, almost as if scared.

A waterfall from fingertips and human skin, the two do not conjoin.

He cannot retain his youth.

His fingers seem evermore wrinkled and his mind grows tired.

His heart aches for something he has lost.

He cripples and deforms and begins to perspire.

His arms dangle over the fountain, index tipping in, sweat droplets converge and become one with the water.

The pool grows higher as the man disintegrates.

Pebble for pebble, bone for bone, and then dust.

Passing in the summer’s wind.

The expiration of youth in the heat of it all.