Debility

Debility is a skeleton hand

imagined in X-ray

reaching up from the funeral Earth

pulling and bogging me down.

Debility is how despite strenuous efforts

each year I draw, read, and remember

a little less well-

my sketches become primitive

my private readings juvenile or senile

Debility is losing

the strength and confidence of youth

yet struggling on

in sunshine or in rain

in happiness or in pain