Neighbor

“I will live to see one hundred.”
So she set her hat
on her old age,
and spent the present
for the future’s sake.
All her plates
were full of green,
and meat was just a fist.
Her legs walked miles
every day
and her wrinkly arms
lifted weights.
No cigarette
or bottle
or candy
touched her lips,
save an occasional
dark chocolate,
and her sheets were pulled back
the same hour
each night,
and her bed made
the same hour,
eight later,
each morning.
She laughed with friends
but never joked
about her goal
of reaching old-old age.
So she walked on,
and ate on,
and restricted her calories,
and saw her doctor,
and walked on
again,
straight over the crosswalk
where the car
never saw her,
before it
was too late.