Erosion of Youth

He suggests a topic for a poem. “Start with –
a breeze, slowly tossing my bangs.” “Bangs?” I laugh,
having not known him when he had some. A myth?
I shouldn’t have laughed. There is another half
of my life that makes me wince when I recall
‘superpowers’ I once had. When did I lose
that mental quickness (traded for a shawl)?
I brace my hands to help me rise from the pews,
but once I could sit on the floor, cross-legged,
seven months pregnant, and stand up without hands,
and even be graceful about it. Wretched,
I wonder, where did those muscles go? Headstands
are beyond me now. “Wait,” he says, “you could try
headstands?” I blush. My memory fails me. “What? Why?”