AGING IN PLACE
I thought that as age changed us, I would not be
so jealous of that gingham shirt, of the water you
stand under in the shower, of the sheets that don’t
need consent to wrap around you in the night, replete.
I thought that old men’s lusts were tamed beasts,
not needing a leash or cage to constrain and that
old women’s skin would not make me forget
my other appetites. But here I am, incomplete—
your shoulder bare in your rolled sleeve work-shirt,
your skirt revealing just enough of your thigh and I
want to greet each with my hand, to be the soft shirt,
the clean sheets, the water. And you and your thirst,
when you see me? I still don’t know how you can
resist the cockled bruised skin of such an aging man.
—from Rattle #84, Summer 2024
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Dick Westheimer: “Sometimes cliches are the best I can offer: The more things change, the more they stay the same. I home in on my wife’s bare shoulder and thigh as much as I did when we were in our 20s. I retain some of the ‘she loves me, she loves me not’ insecurity I felt early on in our relationship. And I still can’t understand how someone as beautiful as she is is attracted to ho-hum me (and my now cockled bruised skin). But somehow, she is.” (web)
