firebrand

He sits on the porch in a rocking chair
and eyes the lovely young nurse.
Her soft curves and eager smile.
All she sees, he thinks, is a cage of decrepitude.
Decrapitude.
In the days of his youth,
then, oh then, he was the sight to behold.
A righteous rabble-rousing firebrand.
And a looker, at that.
Before his body betrayed him
he'd been lean and lovely.
Before his ill-fitting dentures
there'd been the mischievous smile.
The eyes, the eyes still were the same, he thought.
Hidden behind glasses now, but still twinkling,
full of hidden agendas and mysterious secrets.
The voice, no longer the sonorous tones there,
too many years of cigarettes and whiskey.
Oh, how he longed for a cigarette and whiskey.
Anything alcoholic and forbidden.
Well, that was still the same, he thought.
Anything forbidden, he thought,
as he "accidentally" knocked over his juice glass,
(fucking prune juice, for pete's sake)
and ogled the pretty young nurse's ass
as she bent over to retrieve it.
"Oops. Would you like another, sir?"
Oh you bet I would, he thought, not referring
to the juice glass at all.
"Thank you, dear, no."
The heart ever willing but the flesh ever weak.
"Thank you, no."