Winter in the World - by
The old lady struggles, footsteps careful, leaving shuffle marks in the snow.
/ No shopping bag, so maybe it’s church, and maybe…
ageing
Come and Go - by
He has chosen, far nearer the end
/ than the beginning, to live
/ where, every day, he can watch the land
/
/ come and go,…
Good Old Days - by
My neck, where love ran
/ Just under the skin
/ Is now an old rickety ladder to the brain.
/
/ My breasts, a full delight…
Pruning - by
I dock the dead, the damaged and diseased;
/ the gnarled and dry come tumbling from the heights
/ until I stand knee-deep…
In Retirement - by
Widowed of my own image
/ That shone from fellow faces
/ I watch from envious window
/ The men whose energies at morning…
Progress - by
There they are, widows of the professoriate
/ Tied to their frail routines, but not unfree
/ Wheeling their shopping zimmers on Market Street;
/ And…
When Day Is Done - by
Sorrow remembers us when day is done.
/ It sits in its old chair gently rocking
/ and singing tenderly in the evening.
/ It welcomes…
Forgetfulness - by
When my memory
/ was a film library
/ with a keen curator
/
/ who knew precisely
/ where to find clips
/ of every word
/
/ I…
Absent-mindedness - by
I am forgetting quite a lot these days.
/ My task-list is gap-toothed; it should run on
/ Like sequenced lights in a…
Late Call - by
Lord, this is pip-squeak calling.
/ Even with your infinite technology
/ I expect your line’s busy. Therefore
/ forgive me my witter, tucked…
On the Slope - by
I cling to the railings as befits my station:
/ a senior person slipping slowly downhill.
/
/ The world no longer our oyster,
/ gone…
Blight - by
Each of us is old
/ and our brave silks begin
/ to fall from us. Draw close
/ in the chapterhouse of skin.
/
/ How shall we…