Zimmer Vision

Are you a prosaic old man or are you the same as me
and require some kind of meter, rhyme or melody
to smooth your non-transition? You're nothing in-between
and of that I was sure when I saw you, hobbling
(did you have a frame or something?) outside the Co-op.

I suppose it was youthfulness in your face - or something
else gave me first sight. I wasn't sure of what until you sank
in to me and I coughed you up and saw that you were me
not in 20 or thirty years - but now. Just me. Not old. 
More ill than aged. It's not for wimps - that's for sure.

Resolved to wait a while longer, I pedal faster, breathe deeper
and feel all the life that is left along with the shortness
the weakness and the dying. No chorus of "I'm alive"
or other affirming platitudes. More a quiet resolve and
- "mmm - best get a clip on"... Pump up tyres when home.