REUNION POEM
Every ten years, as
summertime nears,
An announcement
arrives in the mail,
A reunion is planned;
it’ll be really grand;
Make plans to attend
without fail.
I’ll never forget
the first time we met,
We tried so hard to
impress.
We drove fancy cars,
smoked big cigars,
And wore our most
elegant dress.
It was quite an
affair; the whole class was there.
It was held at a fancy
hotel.
We wined, and we
dined, and we acted refined,
And everyone thought
it was swell.
The men all conversed
about who had been first
To achieve great
fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their
spouses described their fine houses
And how beautiful
their children became.
The homecoming queen,
who had once been lean,
Now weighed in at
one-ninety-six.
The jocks who were
there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders
could no longer do kicks.
No one had heard about
the class nerd
Who’d guided a
spacecraft to the moon,
Or poor little Jane,
who’s always been plain,
She married a shipping
tycoon.
The boy we’d
decreed “most apt to succeed”
Was serving ten years
in the pen,
While the one voted
“least” now was a priest,
Just shows you can be
wrong now and then.
They awarded a prize
to one of the guys
Who had seemed to have
aged the least.
Another was given to
the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend
the feast.
They took a class
picture, a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts
and wide ties.
Tall, short, or
skinny, the style was the mini,
You never saw so many
thighs.
At our next
get-together, no one cared whether
They impressed their
classmates or not.
The mood was informal,
a whole lot more normal,
By this time we’d
all gone to pot
It was held
out-of-doors, at the lakeshores,
We ate hamburgers,
coleslaw, and beans.
Then most of us lay
around in the shade,
In our comfortable
T-shirts and jeans.
By the fortieth year,
it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely
over the hill.
Those who weren’t
dead had to crawl out of bed.
And be home in time
for their pill.
And now I can’t
wait as they’ve set the date,
Our sixtieth is
coming, I’m told.
It should be a ball;
they’ve rented a hall
At the Shady Rest Home
for the old.
Repairs have been made
on my old hearing aid,
My pacemaker’s
been turned on high.
My wheelchair is
oiled, and my teeth have been boiled,
And I’ve bought a
new wig and glass eye.
I’m feeling quite
hearty; I’m ready to party,
I’ll dance until
the dawn’s early light.
It’ll be lots of
fun, and I hope at least one
Other person can make
it that night.