Resthome Ladies
The Rest Home Bus Arrives at the Theatre
I love these ladies.
No, I’m not a new kind of pervert.
I love them because they persevere,
because they have guts.
Often they wear grim expressions,
their mouths thin lines,
lips having disappeared,
whereupon they’ve made new ones,
the lipstick garish hubris
seeping up the creases
toward their blossoming noses.
And even when they are
shapeless as a bag of rutabagas,
flesh sagging downward
like swagged ropes of dough,
thin-haired, scalps pink
beneath the permed little curls,
pushing walkers and holding canes,
even then — even then! —
they still waddle to shopping centers,
to friends, concerts, bingo parlors;
to offspring and lands far away . . .
All this after their husbands
have retired to their Lazy Boys to die—
or to watch in solitude
lanky mutants bouncing balls.
.
(2009)
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