May 2. Since this happens to be a very political week here in Indiana, a poem from a new series that I am writing, tentatively entitled “The Politics of an Old Woman”, seems fitting for my contribution this time around. Enjoy !

THE POLITICS OF AN OLD WOMAN
Part I. In Public.
I want to protest those little boys in the Ladies’ Rooms…
Mothers sneak them in and then they peek under the dividing wall.
No boy-children in my bathrooms…
They are little perverts!
I’m sure they are up to no good.
When I was young
You had to pay to get into women’s stalls
A quarter a hit.
At least we should still have that
And the mothers should have to pay a quarter
For each male offspring
They loudly instruct about
What to do with their garments
And body parts.
All this, just so they can pee.
It shouldn’t be for free.
No mixed sex, please.
I’m sure it will turn them all into
Those ungodly, wrong-sex-identified perverts
Who, at age three, will want to attack me.

And don’t get me started on them in the showers at the Y!!!!
Join with me, Women out there !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, come to think of it,
Us old folks with our wrinkly bodies
probably shouldn’t be allowed in any public facilities,
for surely we hurt the peoples’ eyes
and remind them of what they will become,
what will trans-pire before they ex-pire.
Keep us old transitioned wrinklies at home!

Part 2. A Post Menopausal in a Trump State.

I’m just waiting
for Trump and all of the “pro-life” soldiers
to put us post-menopausal women on their hit lists.
After all, we have all those unused ova dying slow deaths,
withering in our aged bodies.
Surely we women
must be held accountable
for such waste and devastation.
(I know I will be among
The first to go,
Not having contributed
Any of my population exploders
For the uncommon good.)
What a waste of skin and uterus
I must be.
But all of us of
“a certain age” will be called.
I foresee us being put out on ice floes
and sentenced to death for our crimes
of not using all of those potential “babies”.
Just sayin’

Bev Hartford