“Senior Citizen at a Wedding Reception”
Greetings
from the side table
where we’re all over 70
and none of us knows
any of the songs
blasting from the DJ’s
speakers, loud enough
to wiggle the Grand Canyon.
We are now those
elderly uncles and
aunts with the white-haired
friends of the bride
and groom’s parents
assigned to the AARP,
reverse mortgage,
Medicare supplement
section of the reception
seeing each other’s lips move
but hearing not a word
in the skull-crushing music.
The tattooed, nose-ringed
DJ looks bewildered when
I request a song by
Sinatra, the same when
I ask for Tony Bennett
leaving me no choice
but to go out on the floor
and dance to Taylor Swift
where the rest of the guests
stare at me as if they’d never
seen a prehistoric dinosaur
twist again like we did last summer.
Published in the Connecticut River Review