Ninety Years Young

I am classified
senior.

Here there are no elder statesmen,
only the rich become elders.
The poor become merely old.
Fodder for special housing.

On occasions they remark
my attendance.

Once I was part of the GNP,
now I am congratulated
for surviving.

They ask my age impudently
as they ask a child.
We are both referred to
in the third person
as if we were not in the room
which soon I won’t be.

They nod as if my years
tell them something,
but they are mute.

For I have forgotten much
that I should have held close
and recreated a past
that never existed.

Were I not so impatient
with their conclusions
we might talk.

But I am,
and we don’t.

~ Melodie Corrigall

A Small Room