Robert Cooperman

 

 

On a Park Bench

 

My brother and I

used to joke

that when we got old,

we’d sit on a park bench,

like the two old friends bookended

in the Simon and Garfunkel song,

who find it “terribly strange

to be seventy.” 

 

We’d slap-shoot our canes

at the encroaching pigeons,

while we’d mutter curses

we thought hilarious

when we were young,

or at least younger.

 

Plain, that neither of us

really believed

we could ever

get old and feeble,

and seventy?

Unthinkable.

 

But it wasn’t up to us:

lucky to still be here,

though we’ve got more

pains and ailments

than there are pigeons

zombie-crowding

the white-sock feet

of other old men.

 

 

Devorah Baum

Adachioma Ezeano