Planned Obsolescence

Nature meant us to have just a few decades, time enough

for puberty and propagation and seeing the kids safely

onto a soccer team before we were eaten by a giant kangaroo,

saber-toothed cat, or fellow primate, or more slowly felled

by dengue fever or gingivitis. She could not have anticipated

sewer systems, antibiotics, sterile operating rooms, or

the many and varied uses we would put to the buried

remains of ancient life. Who could have guessed how many

of us would live long enough to die of natural causes,

to experience that closing cascade of systemic organ failure,

surrounded by loved ones and our collection of porcelain

corgis? Surely she must be appalled at the sight of our octo-

and nonagenarians dancing to Johnny Mathis, walker-to-walker

with the other residents of the Shangri-La Assisted Living

Senior Hospitality Center and Make-Your-Own froYo Bar.

Still, there goes my neighbor Norman, who made it on TV

for turning a hundred last year, and who, early in the morning

of every school day, dresses in his cargo shorts and high-vis

safety vest and walks down the street to the busiest crossing

in front of the elementary school, where he guides pods

of impatient human young across the street, telling them

to slow down, stop swearing, watch out for cars and zip up

their damn coats if they don’t want to catch their deaths.

(first published in Atticus Review, 2018)