The Body You Rest

Your joints speak when you leave them still too long.
Your muscles ask for use the way the lungs ask air.
Every part of you was made expecting movement —
a body that moves is a body that stays.

The body you don’t use begins to leave you.
At fifty the chair has learned your shape.
By sixty the stairs begin to count against you —
the dying that begins while you are strong.

Motion is the oldest proof that you are here.
Don’t die before you die — your joints still want to bend.