- Stucco falls in irregular patches,
- mold sees chance and soon attaches.
- Velvet chairs bald here and there,
- recording forever who sat where.
- Silver patina holds the light,
- old forks enriching every bite.
- Soft wood floors show our passages,
- each generation of new menages.
- These words are good for comfortable things—
- shabby, tattered, dilapidated, worn,
- dog-eared, frayed, faded, torn.
- For aging humans we must prefer—
- mellow, ripe, tested, wise,
- tempered too strong to trivialize.
- The elder merwoman’s many scars
- give to her the strength of czars.
