Aunt Vera seemed frail

While I was growing up.

Every year, she had colds

 and laryngitis.

She could not swim.

She had allergies;

She could not enter our

 cat-filled home.

But, when I moved back to

 New Hampshire

After my divorce,

I saw that my parents were aging;

Aunt Vera was not.

With a scarf over her gray hair,

She could pass for thirty-five.

For so long she was young,

 but now she is old.

Her hair is white.

Her eyes are cloudy.

Her face is lined.

Her fingers are gnarled.

She looks every day of eighty.

She is ninety-six.

    — Felicia Nimue Ackerman

Appeared in Free Inquiry, February/March 2008; reprinted in American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine, Spring 2008.