fifty years young and she asks no one
directly,
how will she compete?

she is tail and blonde and thin and all that
='s
pretty,

but,

single and
pretty at fifty,
slender, athletic,
currently unemployed
knowledgeable sports fan,
courtesy of her dad and no brothers

is not good enough

none of it, cuts it
when, in summertime
she only sees
youths coupling and rosy
older men with
young babies rosy
every place,
every restaurant
we take her

(the 19 year old tan,
embarrassingly,
almost bare
dumber and meaner than dumb
hostesses,
all look up,
inspect our arrival,
yes, in need of seating,,
we are three
and stupid youthful smiles,
yes, three, smirking, I get it...)

she slips it
out loud,
@ our "dinner for three,"
loud and yet inaudible
because we all want it to be
invisible unheard

a private thought,
part gasp,
part cri du couer,
wail plain and female plaintive,
can't compete, can't compete

cannot respond with a fatherly
there, there,
for that would be ridiculous,
even insulting

she wandered in and out of
purposeless, prepared for failure
relationships, and now
it is a look-back, lost,
Thirty Years War

find her a friend!
reply, they are,
sad and married,
besides you know,
I travel alone
in the
company of women,
and so by now,
they have stopped asking

it hangs there,
a hanging atmospheric decoration,
till enough seconds pass
and it is restaurant-noise
clinked away,
time erased,
never was said

I kick myself under the tangible table,
so no one else has to,
reminding me that you cannot be
poet~healer to everyone,
always,
try as you might