Howard F. Stein
The Race
But at my back I always hear…
—Andrew Marvell
Eager to run,
The horses line up
At the starting gate,
Hardly able to wait.
Each horse bears a name—
Acute or chronic,
Physical or mental,
Terminal or treatable,
They are beyond ready—
The timer fires his starting gun;
Impatient horses take off down the track,
Press their way toward the goal.
Soon the co-morbidities
Round the bend,
Then head into the final stretch,
Neck and neck.
COPD, AFib, Parkinson’s, and the rest—
All give it their best.
It is anyone’s guess
Who will cross the finishing line first
Win the race,
And claim the coveted prize.
Howard F. Stein is the author most recently of the poetry collections Light and Shadow (Doodle and Peck Publishing, 2018) and Centre and Circumference (Ori Academic Press, 2017). Poet laureate of the High Plains Society for Applied Anthropology, he is professor emeritus in the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, where he taught for nearly 35 years. He is a husband, and a father of one son, Zev, who is an outstanding drummer. His two cats, Luke and Leia, keep him almost constant company and are reputed to help him write poetry.
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