HURRY UP, HURRY UP My hands are aimless as rags in the wind, my fingers becoming ineffectual as fringe. I used to play the piano - Bach fugues or Chopin, won a box of chocolates once by finding at a baby shower, in record time, the most safety pins buried in a bowl of gleaming, uncooked rice. I crocheted, quilted, with small, even stitches, knitted a warm, wool, striped scarf - crimson, brown, and beige - for my spouse who took for granted, as I did, my prettily-crimped piecrusts, and paintings of roses and a wrought-iron gate. My longhand was as legible as "The Book of Kells" compared to the shriveled-cobweb scrawl I struggle with today, as I try to write a readable check, put paper money in a wallet, clutch a kleenex, take it from a pocket, open my old, gold, heart-shaped locket, pull on white sneaker-socks, shuffle cards, without feeling pressure from inside to hurry up, hurry up. And I waver in the wind when I walk.