Not for Sissies

Growing old
is not for sissies . . .
Who said that?
Memory misses

once again
its target, but
that’s not surprising
four score up.

I’ve two new hips
plus a pacemaker
in my youth
I was a racer

who won an annual
schoolboy’s fame:
now I need
a Zimmer frame.

They try to make
us watch TV
all afternoon.
I doze till tea.

After each meal
I take my pills
lined up like soldiers
on their drills.

I had a house
I had a wife
I had a job
I had a life

and sometimes bored
grandchildren visit
their wish to be elsewhere
explicit.

Yes growing old
requires great gumption.
But who’d prefer
the other option?

Tom Vaughan

If you have any thoughts on this poem,  Tom Vaughan would be pleased to hear them.