Don’t let anyone fool you
with advertised or proclaimed joys 
of the so-called Golden Years.

Carefree couples dancing, playing 
whist or bingo, a saintly smile, 
gentle touch of a caring wife 
helping her diminished husband 
in a diminished life.

Whoever said “it’s not for sissies” 
had it right. My mother called them 
“brass years.”

It’s not just the big things,
it’s the little things—
daily indignities: mental glitches, 
missing words, loss of friends,
a satchel of grief hauled around.

It’s hard to live each day
as if it’s your last—
In platitudinal bliss or eternal present 
as animals do. Smell wind, grass
free of concern for future or past.