Motion Poem by Steven Federle

My body’s always in motion
running through unseen routines
forcing air, chest rising and falling,
heart-blood coursing
through a million small chambers
to glow red again.

Even at rest
my chest rises to cold air
and drinks it in, clean and clear,
and with heady ambition,
I run,
my aging legs pounding
this treadmill
to nowhere.

But I know this
is a temporary condition.
Soon enough
my blood will congeal and
pool into still, cool wells.

No more will I wake
though bright morning itself
should shake my shoulder
and with swelling song
bid me rise,
for I am not made
for eternity’s day.

Death waits
and will not
be turned away.