At Twenty-Five

THEY told me I would not be whole again,
 that this now was my life;
 that I could neither drive, nor work,
 nor stay long in the bright sunlight

I WAS to be a creature, then, of illness:
 I was this disease --
 That I could look on life from inside walls,
 But never as I'd please

BUT SCIENCE, it turns out, is human:
 Well-intentioned, incomplete --
 The life I've had turned out quite differently,
 And rather much more sweet

BUT WINDOWS, still, are memories:
 I look through them, remembering,
 That I am lucky every time
 I'm exiting, or entering

FOR THESE, our bodies, finally fail:
 They are not made to long survive,
 But this one's gone three decades since
 They told me this at

 Twenty-five