Today is red, the boys are swinging sticks
      at a hive in the neighbor’s yard, porched grandparents
singing this is my dreaming glass
while wiggling in the wind the way women will
their fingers when showing painted nails.
      The dogs are silent       and you notice this for dogs
are often barking. There’s a beard in the paper published
for its luminosity. The boys are in the fireplace now,
they are only climbing it or sneaking cigarettes but
            the grandparents are still
                                                    breaking in their skeletons.
                                                    You
contemplate the 1930’s, the jazz and filibustering for beer
            while the boys continue with their tongues in a socket.
      And you think that you want to have wisdom and love
and a Cadillac Deville. A water aerobics course to stave the arthritis.
           How lovely old age! Lest you cripple
           your legs or cancer your gums or simply die before
           your grandchild’s piano recital—Funeral March of a Marionette. Surely
                       they will mourn even though you’ve urged the contrary:
           balloons and your dentures in a glass of good whiskey.
      But it’s likely they will mourn and anyway,
                       the dogs are barking again and you
                                            really ought to find those boys.