Gingeritis

I find that my life is rapidly slowing.
I’m gingerly coming and gingerly going,
for if I move quickly in shower or mall
I slip and I stumble. I bump and I fall.

I eat gingerbread cookies and drink ginger ale.
I mince more fresh ginger over my kale,
thinking that once I have eaten a faceful
somehow I’ll develop a gait that’s more graceful.

Yet when I go faster,
with steps that are vaster,
I find that once more
I’m down on the floor.

So again I move gingerly, with great attention,
hoping that no one will notice and mention
that I’m also shrinking, and the lower I get
with less distance to fall, still the slower I get.

I don’t need a walker. I don’t need a cane.
I’m not yet in need of the handicapped lane.
Please don’t offer a wheelchair for boarding the plane.
I’m entirely capable, plus I’m too vain

to be labeled as elderly, seen as infirm
I have not yet contracted that “elderly” germ
that will render me helpless and feeble and fumbling.
I simply step gingerly, lest I go tumbling.

The prompt today was gingerly.