Today was Senior Day in town.
Everywhere I went was awash
in blue rinse and that thin brown whiz
they offer up as free coffee.
At the Goodwill, the checkout girl
said without looking up, “Do you get a
discount?” Then flicked her weary lashes
towards me before saying, “I guess not.”
At the grocery, an elderly acquaintance
bellowed across three aisles that I was
looking far too thin. And the line was clogged
with hearing aids unable to read the self-serve screens.
Out in the parking lot, my way was blocked
by a perfectly-preserved 1980s Buick
straddling two spaces while its near-sighted
owner struggled with the gear shift.
Strangely reassuring, then, to arrive in the plumbing
aisle of the hardware store, and have a grey-haired
woman stop pushing a giant ladder just long enough
to yell, “There’s some young man here who needs help!”
Penguin Poems 