By: Milton P. Ehrlich

My old lady is now an old lady.
She used to cut a rug as a jitterbug
at the USO back in the 1940’s.

These days she sashays across a kitchen floor
in a sedate but sensuous Argentine tango.

Her old man can’t see or hear too well—
is always asking her to repeat things
he hasn’t heard and wrestles with a quixotic libido.

She’s still lovely as a chanterelle,
but refuses to look in a mirror—
beautiful to me as she ever was.

His tremulous hands still crank out a tune
on a glockenspiel which he can no longer lift.

Shrunken and wrinkled they nuzzle each other
like soft-eyed palominos.

If only a magician could abracadabra them—
releasing their pent-up irrepressible glee,
she would fly away singing like a nightingale
accompanied by him following close behind
as a protective peregrine falcon.