by Nolo Segundo
If you really want to join the Club of the Old,
there’s not much you have to do–
just stay alive and wait—and
one day—it will seem sudden–
you’ll stop lying to yourself—and
you’ll accept the mirror’s word
as truth (for what mirror can lie?)
and on that saddest day you’ll say
(though still only to yourself),
‘I AM OLD’,
and thus the oath will be made
and you will be in the Club of the Old.
Of course it is a club that none want to join,
and some try to deny their membership by
injudicious use of face-lifts and Botox,
wigs and dyes and pricey sports cars.
Still, once members, most don’t want
to leave the chummy Club of the Old,
for there is only one more club to join,
and membership is mandatory sooner
(too soon for those in the Club of Youth)
or later, but all will one day join, quietly,
peacefully, or kicking and screaming, but
all will join that last club–
the Club of the Dead.
So make of it what you will,
the Club of the Old, a club without
bias, without racism or sexism or tests
for IQ or financial disclosure—a most
democratic club, a club that accepts all,
so long as they are old….