A (0:00)

Some days call for sleek and straight, others for slouchy and relaxed. Whatever your vibe, Old Navy has the denim fits to match from extra high rise to barrel. It's not just a mood, it's a whole style range. And with jeans Starting at just $22, you can collect them all. Snatched waist go extra high rise straight lived in staple vintage slim, low slung and laid back, slouchy wide. You've got range. Your denim drawer should too. Premium fabric Deluxe details your perfect pair or weights. Shop in store or online@oldnavy.com Morning.

B (0:30)

One sausage McMurd muffin with egg please.

C (0:33)

Okay, your total is.

B (0:34)

Wait. Let's negotiate. How's about you throw in hash browns for a dollar?

C (0:39)

Well yes sir, that price is already a dollar.

B (0:42)

Take it or leave it.

C (0:44)

Take it I guess.

D (0:46)

Buy one, add one for a dollar on sausage McMuffin with egg, hash browns and more with McValue. Most locations open 5am or earlier. Price and participation may vary. Limited time only. Valid for item of equal or lesser value.

C (0:58)

Ba da ba ba ba Foreign I'm Maggie Smith and this is the Slowdown. When I was younger, I took my body for granted. I was so busy bemoaning what my body wasn't taller, thinner, with curlier hair and straighter teeth that I hardly appreciated what it was. Looking at old photos, I can see now what I couldn't see then. It seems to me that middle age is the time we start to regard ourselves differently, to notice ourselves physically changing. Yes, I have new lines around my eyes and new glints of silver in my hair, but my body continues to surprise me in wonderful ways too. It brings me a lot of pleasure, maybe even more pleasure than it did when I was in my teens, 20s, and even 30s. Because I appreciate it and because I am less self conscious. That is one of the gifts of aging, becoming more yourself and caring less about what others think about you or expect from you. My mother told me this time was coming and she was right. I have never cared more about the things that matter. I have never cared less about the things that don't. Clarity is a gift. Do I wish I could have that clarity and still have my young body? You bet I do. But that's not how this life works. Today's poem moved me so much because it arrives at that clarity. I think you'll want to listen to this poem more than once. Letting it lap at you like water, Letting it rise around you like smoke from a beach bonfire. Letting it sing to you like an aria bonfire opera by Danusha Lamaris. In those days there was a woman in our circle who was known not only for her beauty but for taking off all her clothes and singing opera. And sure enough, as the night wore on and the stars emerged to stare at their reflections on the sea and everyone had drunk a little wine, she began to disrobe, loose her great bosom and the tender belly, pale in the moonlight, the Viking hips, and to let her torn raiment fall to the sand as we looked up from the flames. And then a voice lifted into the dark, high and clear as a flock of blackbirds, and everything was very still, the way the congregation quiets when the priest prays over the incense and the smoke wafts up into the rafters. I wanted to be that free inside the body, the doors of pleasure opening one after the next, an arpeggio, climbing the ladder of sky, sky. And all the while she was singing and wading into the water until it rose up to her waist and then lapped at the underside of her breasts, and the aria drifted over us, her soprano spare and sharp in the night air. And even though I was young, somehow in that moment I heard it, the song inside the song, and I knew then that this was not the hymn of promise but the body's bright wailing against its limits, a bird caught in a cathedral, the way it tries to escape by throwing itself again and again against the stained glass. The Slowdown is a production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation. To get a poem delivered to you daily, go to slowdownshow.org and and sign up for our newsletter and find us on Instagram @downdownshow and blueskylowdownshow.org hi, it's Maggie. Thanks for listening to the Slowdown. Whether you press play to find calm or vivid inspiration, we're glad you're here. As a public media podcast, we rely on listener support to share these moments of poetry. Please consider donating today@slowdownshow.org donate.