When I Grow Old

(Homage to Billy Collins’ poem The Future)

When I grow old

and older and older,

when the day after tomorrow

Is the last day after tomorrow,

I will paddle across a rippled pond

and expect to meet a lot of

people I have loved and liked,

and I will ask first to see those

whose mere laugh could make

me laugh, and the those whose

spontaneity made me giggle

in church, second row, no hiding

remotely possible. And then those I

loved with a teen’s crush, those of the

first cheek-to-cheek dance and the

first smooch category.

I will tell them

how sweet and salty they were,

how they convinced me the world

was splendid and promising,

like their kisses,

their laughter,

our timing.

Just about right.