William Aarnes

Ode: Age Spots

On suspended platforms
          outside the apartment building
across the street, masons
          move about in an order

seemingly chosen by chance.
          Two to a platform, they break
open patchy sections of brick
          and then mortar in replacements,

the new bricks a tad darker—
          haphazard but thorough work
proceeding as if there’s no plan
          to finish.

                      Isn’t that how skin is—

cells replaced by new ones
          as if randomly, some of the new ones
differing from the old ones
          but year after year the new cells

appearing when needed as if—as if—
          there’ll be no end?

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William Aarnes lives in New York. His latest poetry collection is The Hum in Human (Main Street Rag, 2022).