With a headline like that, how could I not click on it?
I mean, I could start my own list:

The I’m-growing-hair-where? places—
The top of my right hand, on my big toes.

The it-aches-why? spots, and don’t get me
started on all I forget… though, to be fair,

that’s been my lifelong poet brain,
which a friend gently suggested might be

ADHD, which would explain a few things.
No, the article listed the “shift and drift”

of our teeth, especially our bottom teeth,
which a dentist pointed out to me decades ago.

“Everything moves to center,” he said,
and he wasn’t kidding.

Also our voices change—men’s get higher,
women’s lower (that pesky testosterone,

sure, but also flabby vocal cords—who knew?).
And, of course, we know that we shrink—

men lose about an inch, women two.
Why does that not apply to middles?

Not just spine compression but falling
arches, apparently. But here’s the good news:

Migraines can diminish after menopause,
which is a huge blessing, since peri-menopause

brought them with such fierceness that
I thought my brain was rebelling against

every unkind thought I’d harbored,
every lie (white or otherwise) I’d told,

every act of betrayal, which spurred me
to take stock of all those little boats

moored in the anchorage of my mind,
and, one by one, make amends.

I’m still making them, probably for
the rest of my life, but the headaches,

when they come, are no longer
giant tempests raging, just smaller swells,

which remind me to send lovingkindness
sailing into the world, even when it’s hard,

because (good old me has learned) that’s
when all of us need it the most.

•••

You can read The New York Times article that inspired this poem here.