Arlene Corwin Poetry

Seventy & Eight

Seventy and eight:

You’ve definitely

Set aside some vanity.

What is it but priority?

And some priorities have changed.

It’s called acceptance.

Skin that’s re-arranged itself

Without permission.

When you’re nearing birthdays

Each and every

Twelvth damned month,

You shun

The cant if you’re observant.

This has that… and that’s a pain,

Marriages have come and gone,

You’ve eaten everything on offer.

Gone the need to entertain

The suffering’s more neutralized;

So many friends and kin have died.

You’ve channeled drives

That used to thrive on pleasure.

With a birthday coming up

You’re going down each second’s unit

So immeasurably tiny you can’t count it.

Here is where it gets didactic:

Birthdays coning up – don’t hope but have it.

As for vanity, retract it.

That’s it.

Seventy & Eight 10.28.2012

Birthday Book; Circling Round Vanities II; Birth, Death & InBetween II;

Arlene Corwin