let’s praise old ladies’ beautiful bodies I see them daily in the Y shower room myself included some of us gaunt sinewy some with rolls of fat some in between but most with rounded bellies gnarled toes most a scar or two a lump or two
a limp or two but all just right just right
as we scrub under the hot spray
moms come through for the next session
dragging by the hand their round-bellied
chubbies the babes hanging back to
stare at us with wide eyes my new year’s wish to you, small ones, is that you will grow old your bodies still spry and that the world you inherit will be habitable
and hospitable for all your beautiful bodies
a limp or two but all just right just right
as we scrub under the hot spray
moms come through for the next session
dragging by the hand their round-bellied
chubbies the babes hanging back to
stare at us with wide eyes my new year’s wish to you, small ones, is that you will grow old your bodies still spry and that the world you inherit will be habitable
and hospitable for all your beautiful bodies
