Even after we stretch,

we feel the tendons pull. They yank at us, muscles taut- with oxygen, or lactic acid or something unspecified by science -it occurs in such a way, we feel we've lost all our youth. How could we be so oblivious to its slow departure? Its achingly gradual thump that echoes deep in the past of our legs, our skin, our heads and perforated hearts of fissured innocence. Our naked anatomy grown so slow, we become body hollowed out with yellow toxins, then repaired by anti-oxidants, eventual skeletons of self removed slightly from former self, removed slightly again from self that came before that self, pungent bulbed onions of yesterday husked away like a patient garlic peeler - each day, a half-life, a cross-section of a former self.