who wants to know
the exact day one will die?
(not I, not I, says the fly to the spider)  
but she tells me, this crooked old lady
from a dream…

she circles me, prods me
with bony fingers, ogles me
through blue blinking eyes, her mouth
curling in curious, curdled smile  

you will be here a while--you have
until you are seventy-five years plus a day  
how do you know this? mostly in your eyes, she says  
but they are not red, from lack of sleep, I protest, and
my blood numbers are grand, all within those blessed ranges
still red, she says, and being duly desiccated
by wily winds you do not control  

but I still climb mountains, I proclaim
and look for Ponce De Leon’s fountains? she asks  
why do you argue with me, in this liquid world
of sleep, for I am thee, and you
are me    

when I awake,
I know not where she went
or from whence she came, but woefully
I concede, the old lady, and this teller of tales
are one and the same