My husband bought some skinny jeans,
The kind **** Jagger’d wear,
Which cling real tight from ankle
To the thigh and derriere.

They came today, from Amazon;
He couldn’t wait to try them,
Especially to prove me wrong.
(I’d told him not to buy them.)

I must admit that they look great
And so I couldn’t scoff
But it was pretty funny
When he tried to take them off.

It took a few attempts with lots of
Tugs and yanks and wiggles,
Providing me with quite a bout
Of told-you-so-type giggles.

I’m sure to him he’ll get rewards
In compliments a’plenty,
But he would have it easier
If he were more like 20!

We took a risk; it worked out fine
But not without some stressing,
For everything in life requires
A fair amount of guessing.

Without such chances, we remain
Upon an even keel,
A little bored, perhaps, but hey,
Quite safe – that’s the appeal.

I’m usually risk-averse
But sometimes I get shaken
From my comfort zone and afterwards,
Feel glad it was forsaken.

Oh, to be a person who
Stays cool, calm and collected,
Instead of one whose jangly nerves
Has stressing-out perfected.

To be the one who never sweats,
Whose heart won’t race on faster,
Anticipating something wrong,
From trifle to disaster.

I’d like to feel relaxed and not
Stretched taut with fret and worry
And take my time without the need
To feel that I must hurry.

To rationally make a choice
And never second guess it;
To analyze a situation,
With no need to stress it.

Oh, to be that person!
What a joy that it would be!
The only drawback is, of course,
That it would not be me!

I learned to type the proper way
Instead of hunt and peck,
Most often on a manual.
(Electric was high tech.)

But nowadays when texting
I’m pathetic as one comes
For I seem to be incapable
Of writing with my thumbs.

So every message I compose
My pointer finger taps,
The right one only, I should add –
No tangled overlaps.

I marvel when observing
All the mainly younger folk
As they thumb their words so quickly
While I, turtle-like, do poke.

Number 261* ran a pretty good race.
Though she couldn’t have won it, she set a fine pace.
Her hat hid her hair but if you’d seen her face
You’d have realized she wasn’t a guy.

The year – ’67, a marathon run
In Boston, and soon after it’d begun
Officials decided her racing was done
And her gender the answer to “Why?”

For the course was for men; anyone called “her”
Had to skip it or hide who they really were.
K.V. Switzer she signed as, so they’d infer
That a male was the one to apply.

She resisted attempts to drag her away
And completed those miles, ignoring the fray.
Yet it took 5 more years, quite a lengthy delay,
‘Til the rule-makers had to comply.

Now at 70, Switzer, still true to form,
Ran in Boston, to welcomes both loud and warm.
Her gutsiness once took the world by storm
And her triumph no one can deny.

*Kathrine Switzer’s Boston Marathon number
  in both the 1967 and 2017 races

Some noises startle, jolt or jar
While others soothe or soften.
We perk up for the new but tune out
Those we hear quite often.

To locals, city sirens make
The tiniest impression
But visitors consider them
A barbarous transgression.

The hum of traffic rolling by
To urbanites equates
With cricket chirps or chickadees
In countryside debates.

The noises that surround us
Are as varied as our homes
Or the subjects and the wording
Of a plethora of poems.

The passengers were in their seats
When something was announced –
Employees had to fly and so
Four people would be bounced.

Requests with compensation
Met with silence, so United
Chose some “random” ticket holders
To deplane and thus ignited

Quite a controversy, since one man
Just out and out refused.
His ****** removal left him
Furious and bruised.

The gentleman, a doctor,
Had some patients to attend to.
United workers didn’t care;
Nor did they pretend to.

Of course, the scene was filmed
And now those so-called “friendly skies”
Will be filled with cancellations
As the rage intensifies.