You are no longer the
tortured tumescent terror
you were at twenty.

After sixty, the ****** urge
waxes and wanes,
but still arrives
promptly when called upon.

A kind of peace lives in this.

Arousal now requires love,
whereas when young
it arrived at the glimpse
of a leg or a skirt's flounce.

This is more personal
and more satisfying.

The young deserve lust and
the tempestuous heartbreak
it inevitably brings
when mistaken for more
than it can ever be.

Those older need the touch
of a beating heart
as much as the touch
of simple, hot flesh.

No time remains
for the merely casual.

Your desire reminds you
of ruins, fallen towers,
the pressure of mortality.

You want the body beneath you
to touch your soul as well.

You want to touch it back,
to make it gasp and moan
but to hear it in your heart
as well as in your ears.

You want to hold it close
and keep it near forever,

remembering that forever
is not nearly as long
as it used to be.

No time to fool around;
find someone real
and clutch them as if
they were your last chance,
which they may well be
at any age.