to wit:

I will be a stout
and blissful seventy,
with a stomach like a cushion
for my breasts

sturdy legs to walk me
round and round the zoo,
with one hand on some man
for support

which man, with luck, will
make me laugh across tables
accompany me to cinemas
or mountains

and with me watch retreating snow
reveal mirrors, and birds dislodge
shards of songs
from their throats

maybe, by the time I�m old,
science will have found a way
for women to give birth
to grandkids

so I can have some
They�ll bake cookies to feed me
and frame the poems I
write for them

some of which may be famous
if I am, in certain circles
I�ll remember when people
envied me

told me I changed their conception
of beauty, or slept with me
to spurt urgent, sour words
on my sheets

I�ll tell stories, when I�m 70,
of my affair with the president,
who had me write on him with
fountain pens

and had to explain
to the president of Cameroon
why �fleetingly fascinating�
circled his wrist

and I�ll grow faint and wistful
telling stories: at 70, stories
are what�s left, and more than
half fiction.