Counting Backwards BY LINDA PASTAN

 

How did I get so old,

I wonder,

contemplating

my 67th birthday.

Dyslexia smiles:

I’m 76 in fact.

There are places

where at 60 they start

counting backwards;

in Japan

they start again

from one.

But the numbers

hardly matter.

It’s the physics

of acceleration I mind,

the way time speeds up

as if it hasn’t guessed

the destination—

where look!

I see my mother

and father bearing a cake,

waiting for me

at the starting line.