Observing The Water Denizens

by Katherine L. Gordon

There are no young people here

laughter is raspy and scant

faces lift into smile-mode

retreat behind old grief lines

hooded eyes.

“How is your health?”  “How is your money?”

“Passing fair”  “Bank held”,  the answers.

Everyone lies.

One fellow says “I don’t socialize”

but I comment on his tool-box in the walker

and he fills with light.

Perhaps a social gathering planned

to learn the WHY of our surrenders.

* * * * *

"Observing The Water Denizens " is from Katherine L. Gordon's new poetry collection Caution: Deep Water. http://www.hmspress.ca/deepwater.html. The collection deals with the shock of leaving one’s home for the cultural phenomenon of retirement homes, expensive ghettoes for the vulnerable elderly.

Katherine L. Gordon is a rural Ontario poet, publisher, judge, editor and reviewer, working to promote the voices of women poets around the world, as they are now flowering into acclaim.  She has many books, chapbooks, anthologies and collaborations with fine contemporaries whose work inspires her.  Her poems have been translated and awarded internationally.