Nathan D. Horowitz
When You're 58
When you’re 58, you’ll buy cookies for your students. You’ll take breaks in an abandoned coal mine, catching fish for the quartz crystals between the wispy tendrils of their teeth. One of your hands will steal from the other. When you’re 58, you’ll lose both your credit cards. You won’t be able to pay for a license plate bracket at an auto parts store because your wife will have the debit card. When you’re 58, instead of vacuuming the carpet, you’ll write that it harbors the dust of the ancients – Tertullian, Marcus Aurelius, Sappho. You’ll hold very still, trying to overhear them. When you’re 58, you’ll crack your knuckles and check the weather: Light rain in the afternoon. You’ll remember to feed the cats. When you’re 58, you’ll bloom once every thousand years.