Sisyphus Hits the Gym

Free Verse

Photo by kike vega on Unsplash

Too many wrinkly bodies at the gym
hoping for resurrection, but my neighbor (Jim)
whispered the skinny on graceful aging:

don’t go backward on the courts, cuz
friends — pickleball ain’t table tennis

One false move will send you to the afterlife
But the fitness center waits for no man
I can’t think of one excuse:

The roads aren’t icy,

I’ve drunk my fill of morning stimulants

My daily poem is complete

I know where the ice scraper sits

Damn the tide — relentless! —
of decrepitude, decline
irrelevance and
above all else, damn the supple twists and turns

of early morning yoga pants.