With slow stiff gait
you find a folding chair and wait.
You stare at baby carrots
and cubes of cheese with toothpicks in them.
Slowly you chew.
I want to say, this might be you,
but it sure as hell ain’t me.
With a frozen blank face,
You need help to tie a shoelace.
A rebellious finger ignores your command
to stop.
But you just can’t make it.
Me? I can tie my shoes standing on my head
because I’m not like you.
Today’s exciting feature?
A neurologist is the speaker.
He’ll talk about a promising new drug
That will help, maybe someday.
So hang in there, fellow PD’ers.
Clinical tests start in just three years.
Too late for you. But not for me.
Denial
is God’s gift, critical to our survival.
We don’t notice getting old, stupid or fat.
Each morning we look the same as the day past.
Before ten years slipped by, you too, laughed and got laid.
Just like me, last Thursday night anyway.
But for this day, I’m not you. I’m me.
A POSTSCRIPT OF SORTS, eight years later
Oops! I guess I’m one of you after all.
Save some of those little cubes of cheese with toothpicks in them
for me
Parkinson’s is a littethiefthats what he