You don't realise until you're forty or so
that by then everyone of your age or more
is walking around with some old wound that's buried
back of the eyes or somewhere under the coat.

Even then you forget that some of those you pass
with a nod every day on the road took their hits
quite early on, though you may not remember ever
seeing them stumble or fall or hearing them moan

since that was before the water cleared to show
that wounding seems part of some general plan, with rules
that are not just bloody unfair, they're bloody unknown.
Strange how it took so long for the light to dawn

that sooner or later your own due turn would come
to take one in the shoulder or the gut,
entitling you to limp into the club,
a member in good standing, now fully paid-up.