Judson Simmons

GRAYING

You find a single gray hair
on my head, standing out
like the tallest boy
in a yearbook photo.

“Hold still” you warn,
and pluck from the weeds
a single, white rose.

You release my hair—
it slips from your fingers,
becomes just another thread
to the fabric of the floor…

I am getting older, as expected,
but nothing announces
the changing of our lives
like the frailty our bodies
concede and expose.

_____________________

Judson Simmons is a graduate of the Sarah Lawrence College Writing Program, and holds a BA in Writing/English from the University of Houston. He recently graduated from the MSEd. program for Higher Education Administration at Baruch College in New York City. His chapbook, The Hallelujah Hour, was published by Amsterdam Press in 2010, and his work has appeared in Pebble Lake Review, Evergreen Review, Folio—among other journals.