THE CURSE OF SEVENTY EIGHT

Mona Mehas

My sister just turned seventy-nine;

I called on her birthday, said congrats.

“I broke the curse!” she said,  “Damn the stats!”

I’m afraid to take this as a sign.

Sperm-donor passed at seventy-eight;

my sister just turned seventy-nine.

Sisters called him Dad, with blood aligned—

no, his sperm does not a dad equate.

At seventy-eight, our mother died;

she’d a weak heart and a crooked spine.

My sister just turned seventy-nine—

I’m growing old, my age amplified.

First sister, same age.  Was it bloodline?

At dinner, unspoken, thinly veiled

superstition and fear, now exhaled—

my sister just turned seventy-nine.

"The Curse of Seventy-Eight, from my book Hand-Me-Downs (LJMcD Communications, 2024), deals with the day I came to grips with my own mortality.