Old Age Sex

[BobBradshaw]

Old Age Sex

I couldn't have caught the girls' attention more
if I had ridden onto the dance floor
on a motorcycle. I'm not going to say
that I was handsome

when I enrolled mid-term in that high school
but I was the reason
girls would suddenly hoof off
together to the the rest room,

to discuss how hot I was. I have this
from the most reliable of sources.

Now I wince when I look in a mirror.
"You're old. It's expected,"
my wife says. But there are jowls,

and chins that recede like images
in a barroom's panel of mirrors.

There's a red patch of tissue
at the end of my nose. And my stomach?

On the dance floor it's turned prudish, tries
to put distance between me and my wife.

My wife says "You should complain…
Gravity is my worse fear.
My breasts will soon be sleeping
in my lap like two overfed cats.

And my wrinkles breed overnight.
Soon I’ll look like a bloodhound.

I merely lift my eyebrows
and my forehead looks like a furrowed field!"
She sighs, and I press my head to hers.

Still, sex even now is sweet
as a maraschino cherry.
But as my wife pulls me into her arms
she asks, "Would you mind

turning off the light?"

[FranktheFrank]

Touchy topic.
But if you love a woman
then putting the line on or off doesn't matter.
We are attracted like opposite poles of a magnet
to each other. The need overpoweringly strong
as witness by octogenarian billionaires marrying
again and again ad infinitum.

Brave new world writing to touch such a hot topic.

[BobBradshaw]

I didn’t know this was a hot topic… but then I live a pretty private life.

[FranktheFrank]

Well, I thought I was agreeing with you. I mean so many people think old people
should be put down let alone have sex. I think it is hot, sex is hot. Sex is healing
and age doesn't come into it when two people love each other. Maybe I said it all
wrong. I actually enjoyed the poem. Going off to find my wife now.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Ieuan. Actually studies show old people have a good deal of sex….there’s more time for one thing….

[CalebMurdock]

Bob, it must have been nice to be so hot in high school. I would have been the slightly dumpy gay boy drooling after you like the girls, but saying nothing because I knew the world hated my type. I like to say that I was born with my "repulser beam" turned on, constantly alienating every person I wanted to be close to. By thirty, I had defeated my weight problem, but that lasted only a few years -- and being thin didn't suddenly make me hot.

Writing that the girls went to the girl's room to talk about you does sound ego-centric, but hey, it might have been true. If you had it on good authority that that was what was happening, I can't dispute it. I find myself wondering, though, if this might not be a poem you conjured up from your imagination and wishful thinking. If it is, I've done that too.

I agree with Frank that your poem is a little controversial, but it does speak to a truth: that there are people in the world that everyone wants, while the rest of us lick our wounds. I licked my wounds all my life.

[BobBradshaw]

Thanks, Caleb, for your comments. Much appreciated