The doors that looks could open up
Are padlocked to us now.
The passing years have turned the key
And we are locked outside.
Standing in the icy rain, still trying to get in
Where beauty generates the warmth.

The more bedraggled we appear
The more we disappear.
The paper on the wall becomes
The pattern of our lives.
We arch the brows and paint the lips
And dye the silver strands

But nothing short of neon lights
Will draw attention to our mein.
We see the glance like lighthouse-sweep
Wash over us and then away
As quickly as revolving beams
And we are left here in the dark,

Remembering the longing glance-
The interlocking of the eyes
That told us we had been approved
And freed to move about the sphere
Where all the pretty people were,
And we were added to that sum.

How bittersweet to meet the days
We knew were there but still refused to see
Encamped along our road of life
Like brigands poised to steal the last
Of shimmer from the faces that we wore
And leave us all with masks of wrinkled, sagging age.

ljm