Waterbug

Modesty

Modesty is a funny thing.
I would have said I was modest
— though not at 6 years old.
Yet some of the things I've done
would be deemed immodest.
I would have said they were
a solution to being
too modest — unseemly so.
Yet now, faced with varicose veins,
moles, dimpled thighs, wrinkles, fat
I am again decidedly modest, and will not
go about in shorts or swimming suit
even though no one is looking.

Pam

Modesty Pays Off

I was already modest by age 4.
I knew that no one should ever see me
naked except family and, if absolutely necessary,
a doctor or even (God forbid) a nurse.
And I knew that being in my
underwear pants was almost as bad
as being naked (though a swim suit --
which I called a bathing suit, and, until
corrected, thought was a baby suit --
was OK).

So I never romped about outdoors
in my underpants, but this concern
about decency paid off when I got
a wife. Being naked in a room or
in a bed or even in an embrace
with a naked lady is exciting -- hell,
the word "naked" is exciting, in ways
those of less modest upbringing
(a word which means rearing, and that
makes me think of what I'm bringing
up against your rear, dear)
will have difficulty understanding.

Funny how the things we call "adult"
are mostly energized by the squirms
and giggles of children.

Dean

When

When I was 6 or thereabouts
we didn't have air conditioning.
On hot summer's days Verna let me out
to play wearing only
white cotton underpants.
My friends too wore
white cotton underpants.
And we had contests to see
who could stick out their belly the furthest
and I won. And I was proud!
Now we have air conditioning.
It's been dreadfully hot.
But I wouldn't dare wear
white cotton underpants on the block.
I wouldn't even happily
go out to play.

Pam

POP! POP! POP! Go the Years

I still have more hair on my crown than
sprouting from my ears and nostrils.
I can still get out of my car.
(Getting in is easy.)
I can still get it up
and even in, with a little help
from my friend.

I can still remember a lot of things --
for example that word I couldn't recall
yesterday, then later in the day
it came to me -- what was it...?
(I'm joking. I remember it well:
Pyrotechnic.) I can still joke
about words that go away
on vacations.

But why am I making such a fuss
about being 63? I'm in good shape.
I should wait until I'm 85
to kvetch about growing old.

Yeah, but what if my heart explodes
next week or next year, bye-bye,
and I'll have missed the chance
to write about being old.

So allow me to lie back on the grass
and admire the fireworks,
nerve ending after nerve ending
in the brain firing off in brief blossoms
against the long night we like
to imagine, black velvet stage curtains
before which our brains make
the grand speeches and noble gestures
tragic heroes.

I've mixed up some metaphors there,
but if pyrotechnic appears (and disappears)
in act one, we're bound to drag in fireworks
in what I thought would be act five,
but here I am, still talking. Being alive
in an ageing body
is a mixed metaphor.

Dean

We're in our 60's

We're in our 60s.
I remember as a kid hanging on to Verna's
fleshy old arm on the long walk up to 16th street
where I was treated to a banana split.

Oh, banana split of my youth,
I think, at 62, I loved you
more than I knew!

Pam

As Long As You're Already Hot and Sweaty...

We're in our '60s.
I remember as a kid
being amused to see
from behind
the old lady next door
(maybe no older than we are now)
bending over to pull weeds,
never dreaming
that such a sight
would ever move me
in this mysterious way.

(There's a weed
that wants to be pulled
slowly, very slowly,
as its roots grip my soil
in ten-thousand-times-ten
tickles.)

Dean

Weeding with the Cat

Weeding with the Cat

It's supposed to be in the nineties today.
The cat knows that and doesn't want to go outside,
prefers the crook of your knees as you lie abed reading
Harry Potter (Rawlings has cast a spell on you)
but I dump her out the door, fat cat, and join her
to weed, a game that I am losing
as summer moves along.

I grab them slowly, down close to the mulch,
slowly enough that the roots slide from the soil,
(bend from the waist and pull with the left,
transfer to the right hand, after awhile
deposit a full load in the clear bag
prescribed by our trash removal company
for lawn waste). Bending down, close in to the
reeds gone wild, crab grass, morning lilies,
and some sort of thistle I avoid,
I get gnats in my eyes. (Id feel sorry for them
as they die, but they are making the view murky.)

The lawn care man appears to do
our periodic fertilizing (6 times a year, putting
esoteric beads of something on the lawn
which makes it grow nice and green
and keeps the weeds down and I hope
doesnt run off into the water table
to make mutant fish, after all this is supposed to be
a non-chemical alternative company) and says
stay cool as he leaves.

Gypsy lolls in the shade, coming out to visit
only once, lisping a tentative inquiry.
When I go in, through the garage, she escapes
the great outdoors.

Cat Hat Write-Up

Cat rhymes with fat
and pat, so of course
I must try to pat
our fat cat, but usually
she won't let me do that
(She’s a bit of a brat),
nor will she sit with me
where I'm sitting, preferring to curl up
in the warmth of where I sat --
and, returning, must be careful
not to sit again, crushing her flat
as a furry doormat.

Mostly cat rhymes with at,
which is always where she is,
being a specialist in places,
making them hers, making them places
(so many places I hadn't thought of as places
until they were where she was at).

Really she should be a Quat,
not a cat, for the soft qu leading into the sharp at
expresses her phonically, while Q (plump rear
with a tail to one side) expresses her visually,
what I see of her as she settles on my chest,
facing away, the non-word, Quat, starting
(as the cat does, usually) by going away.

When I play with the cat, tempting her
to attack a feather, she won't let me stop.
I tell her, GOOD cat! You've GOT it! You've won!
(She isn't fooled, wants more.)
Next time I'll respond with the following palindrome
(which, like the cat, comes by going):

Won at attack, cat. Ta ta now...

Dean