Signature

My name scrawled across the page,

like me, is old, so changed from

Mrs. Bailey’s 4^th grade cursive,

taught and practiced, over and over, rehearsed

to a neat and mastered script grown tired

these passing years, my pen too quickly

running the letters together, squeezed illegibly,

and a touch of lazy perhaps, usurped

by overuse, misuse, disuse, by the clatter

of keys handy within my fingers’ easy reach,

or a silent keyboard tapped, transferring words

to a printer’s exactness, clear and self-corrected;

my signature, now, is obsolete,  lost and unread,

an unreadable scrawl across a page, old and tired.