When he turned 60, my father told me,

“It’s all over with me and women”.

When he’d turned 55, he’d thought,

“Get all you can now!

Cause after 60, the fires cool!

But,” he said,

“I was a fool!

Here I am at 80!

Falling in love every day,

just walking to the gym at the 44th Street YMCA!”

He’d taken to telling his wife every time

he’d fallen in love with a woman,

maybe sitting in a Lexington Avenue train.

Gretchen would laugh and say,

in her German immigrant accent,

“Just ass long ass you bring dat love

home to me!”

How wise she was!

I thought,

“How crazy, my father,

falling in love at 80

with a stranger in Grand Central Terminal.”

But then I thought, “Of course! Why not?”

For when he turned 80,

the range of possibles available

quadrupled!

For a man of 40,

a woman of 60

is old!

But,

for a man of 80,

a woman of 70

is sweet, young candy!

He’d married Gretchen,

his forth wife,

a German waitress

at Farney’s on 2nd Avenue,

when she was 60

and he was 72!

And when he died at 85

in Saint Vincent’s DNR ward,

I know he was wishing for

another 20 years

to fall in love again and again,

maybe crossing 8th Street at 6th Avenue

to pick up a pizza at Emilio’s.

And I knew Gretchen

well enough to know

she was wanting another 30 years

of licking tomato sauce from his lips.