Brittney Corrigan

AGE OLD

In my waning gibbous face, as the wrinkles take hold
of my skin, I think of the frilled shark—living fossil—

collar of gills beneath its jaws, throat a scaffold
of fringe, trident-toothed, slender body in the deep.

My mouth, teeth still my own, but at the threshold
of my lips, just a hint of tortoise-pucker, fine furrows

on the wizened upper rim. And oh, the roothold
of expressions: laugh lines, frown lines, crow’s feet

that recall prehistoric kin. Soon, when gravitational folds
sag where my body loved the sun, I will praise elephants:

their bodies gentle and fierce, pleats and creases manifold
and much-caressed. And here at my forehead, where curls

are silvering, I thrill and wish for them a thousandfold—
loops of white, whorls of grey—immortal jellyfish

of luminous tendrils that my fingers twine and enfold,
press to my palm: life line, fate line, heart line, mount of moon.