Sharing The Road

They emerge from their vehicles
crabbed with age, moving slowly
for it takes time for their aching
limbs to be mobilized, moribund brain 
cells taking their leisurely time to send
those electrical signals to those
far removed, tardy legs and arms
which have half-forgotten their
rhythm and obligatory
cooperation with no memory
whatever of that time in distant
history when they moved with the
alacrity, firmness and grace of youth.
Gnarled and bent, backs hunched
with the concentration of a
creature clinging to life, they
advance in slow-motion, clinging
to walkers, to canes, to one another.
You recoil viscerally witnessing
their painful progress, knowing
they are of your generation
some indeed younger, as they
move through supermarket aisles
clinging to shopping carts for
support, erratically navigating
and you shudder, not imagining that
one day you will be as they are
but with the knowledge that you
may not share their ambulatory
plight, but soon they will laboriously
exit the store, make their way to
their vehicle where brain and body
will coordinate overdrive, and it
is the roadway you will share.