Jane is still working,

Judy is too.

Peter is still skiing

but Doug is dead.

Sarah’s memory is fading.

Charlie’s wife is sick.

Mary Ann’s husband died.

Diane can’t control her bowels.

Lynette has cancer, so do I.

We are all on the same road:

same start, different paces,

different barriers,

but the same road,

to the same place.

We were all young at the same time.

We have made what we could of adulthood —

some of us have reproduced,

many of us have married,

not always successfully.

Life goes on, shedding us,

each at his own rate,

in his own way,

at his own time,

as the calendar pages flip.

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Wendy Freborg is a retired social worker and former editor whose poetry has been published by Misfit, Rat’s Ass Review, Right Hand Pointing, The Orchards Poetry Journal, and WestWard Quarterly. She is a frequent contributor to Scalar Comedy and Little Old Lady Comedy. Her pleasures are her family, learning new things, and remembering old times. She writes poetry to learn what she is thinking.