My world isn't hers, skin
like mocha coffee she climbs
into each morning, air pouring
through her throat clear
as creekwater, no line where
brown legs slide into
silk shorts. She's my student
but I'm in class now, aerobics,
flunking in a room of convex
mirrors and dumbbells, though
she's patient, pities me, the
sounds I make for air. It's
hopeless as a dancing bear, Disney
hippo in a tutu, a friend's
father. She wants to pop
candy in my mouth when I do
something right. To her, cigarettes
smell like burning celery, liquor
is shellac, her heart has a slow
beat and sticks to it, she can bench press
me. I sort of pity her, daughter
I never had, how far she has             
to go, how dirty and heavy.
But she's perfect now, and even
her hard music gets under my
fat, sets my frog leg jumping
in jean stores.
She's working hard to get me young,
I'm aging her fast,
and three times a week
we keep meeting here.

From William Greenway: Selected Poems (FutureCycle Press (2014).
This poem first appeared in Grow Old Along With Me, The Best Is Yet To Be (Papier-Mâché‚ Press, 1996).
Used here with the author's permission.