There are no roadmaps, no GPS.
It’s different for each new immigrant
who comes on this reluctant journey.

The face in the passport of your bathroom mirror
shows an old person, wrinkled with white hair,
not at all what you picture yourself.
You still think yourself
young or maybe, middle-aged.

No green highway signs proclaim:
½ year to Hearing Aids,
2 years to Cane,
6 years to Wheelchair.

At the next exit, no directions point:
6 months to Hospice,
10 months to Cedar Grove Cemetery.

On foot, instead
there are speed bumps
where you stumble, fall and deny it
though getting up gets harder.

There are sudden deep chasms
as if the Grand Canyon has
opened beneath your feet,
an abyss of blackness you dare not cross
in the fog that begins
to enshroud you.

And what you pictured as help
becomes a recipe for guilt.
How can you ask your children
to sacrifice for you
just because you did for them?
You hide the decline,
pretend it’s just a glitch.

The road speeds up.
You try to ease off the gas.