"Ageless"

By John Grey

I'm not getting any older.
These creases lie.
There's just the two ages of man.
Life and death.

I'm with the former.
The dancers. The divers.
The ones who read the newspapers.
The ones who don't.

Yes, there's evidence all
around me that the
years must factor into something.
Old men with canes.

Old women nodding off in church.
But that's their story.
Mine says I can do what I please.
And whoever saw pleasure with a cane.

I'll even fall in love next week.
I'll hear a new favorite all time song.
I'll finally get around to
James Joyce's "Ulysses."

You know, the dead guy
whose book is still alive.
I'll even beat my best time
for the hundred yard walk

to the comer store for bread.
I love ice cream, listen to loud rock music.
I slather over twenty five
year old minxes in the movies.

There's only one life
and it's called living.
Just the one death
It's out of breath.

Poet John Grey, of Providence, Rhode Island, is widely published. His latest book, "What Else is There?" is from Main Street Rag. His work has also appeared recently in Agni, Hubbub, South Carolina Review, and The Journal of the American Medical Association.