Wendy Taylor Carlisle

Birthday

That day you tell yourself you can’t fall out or down,
favored as you’ve been by luck and the good opinion
of your secretary and your kids until you notice
your toes slue sidewise on your feet and nothing
is on your mind after that but the lean ankles
of girlhood and your knees which no longer genuflect
easily toward the mountains you have yet to climb.

Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives and writes in the Ozark Mountains of Arkansas and tries to ignore her state’s politicians.