Phase I

Would you want it for her, they ask. 
A woman of her age, past her eighth decade: 
the seeming implication being that she 
must be close to the end of the road. As if 
vaccines are an idea best meant for the young,
those with upper lips still faintly imprinted 
with milk. Or the ones whose duties 
necessitate putting on a suit and tie, 
a pair of hard-shined shoes. But one day, 
sunning herself in the garden, she leans 
forward and confides: I want to live to be 
a hundred. She is not yet of the age 
to be dismissed, her fragile bones not yet 
delivered from the fire as molecule and ash.