CHOICE
by Anna M. Petrick
I am attached to living,
perhaps too tightly so
for one whose years are long.
You are old, the young ones say,
as if the old have spent
their share of life
and now should call out Death
to come with trumpet blare
and cymbal clash.
Not me.
I will not call out Death.
For I am more than wrinkled skin
and brittle bone and thinning hair.
I am more than empty shell
waiting for the blackness of the veil to fall.
I have life yet to live.
