THE OLDER WE GET, THE BETTER WE USED TO BE*

Some days I can’t settle at all and others that’s all I seem to be doing. I look at the backs of my hands and think how much smoother they used to be. The crosshatching has always been there; I remember it clearly yet it seems so much more prominent now. The knuckles knobblier, the grooves …groovier. I still bear, here and there, the tiny white scars of cat scratches from long-ago, they’ve faded a great deal. The veins, on the other hand, are not fading, quite the opposite. My hands are still smooth, but not when they are bent...