Becoming Sixty-Four Poem by Day Williams

I'm coming up
On sixty-four
I'll need a cane
To walk the floor

I'll rise to pee
Ten times a night
Sometimes I'll see
The food I bite

My bald pate shines
From porch to shed
A baseball cap
Will hide my head

I will employ
More doctors than
The wrinkles in
My swollen hands

I'll check obits
If I'm not there
I'll wander ‘round
In underwear

I'll sport new teeth,
New hips, new hair,
I'll have no job,
I'll have no cares

‘Cept when I drift
Around the block
I'll stop to pick
Up colored rocks

And trudge with cane
To First and Vine
And ask myself,
"Which house is mine? "

I'll drive a car
When I can't see
Firemen will lift
Me from a tree

I'll tell about
My childhood pond
While grownups snore
And children yawn

I won't recall
My childhood friends
Nor they me:
So do lives end.

I'll mow the lawn
If I have aid:
While you cut grass
I'll rest in shade

I'll plant some seeds
And make them grow
Then wipe them out
With rake and hoe

My wife will ask,
"What of those seeds? "
"What seeds? " I'll say,
"I took out weeds."

And we'll relax
On rocking chairs
And talk of days
When I had hair

As crickets chirp
And pigeons coo
I'll fall asleep
And you will snooze...

We'll whirl and twirl
On golden streets
Where no one cries
And life is sweet.