Aging | Family | Poetry | Reward | Self

MAYBE I SHOULD PRACTICE NOW
When I am an old woman
I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain,
and pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickles for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beernuts and things in boxes.
But now we must have…