At 44
By Annmarie Lockhart

laps and laps to go
around the bend
sweat, sun, stride

rhythms of breathing
and counting and
pacing

hearts, deaths, tomorrow,
the next time, the last
time, words, taste, touch

always the pulsing
push and pull of
muscle, water,

and the passing
flesh of time with
so few laps to go

Annmarie Lockhart is the founding editor of vox poetica, on online literary salon dedicated to bringing poetry into the everyday, and the founder of unbound CONTENT, an independent press for a boundless age. A lifelong resident of Bergen County NJ, she lives, writes, and works 2 miles east of the hospital where she was born.