Old Age Is Not For Jessies Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Violets are best picked young
She no longer bends to pluck flowers
She settles for shop-bought lilies
Cut in anonymous greenhouses

Sometimes her eyes flash
Like stirred ashes. A memory
Rises like a flame
Then collapses into the ruin of her present

She dresses slowly, wishing that
She could vomit up Old Age like a fur ball

Death watches from her looking glass
She is no soothsayer. Cataracts obscure him
Though he is wanted, if his coming's quick

And easy