Both were olderly.

Both had been widowed, recently, relatively.

(Relative to the decades they’d been espoused to their beloved spouses)

and now were, surely, ready,

he had said, “…to give it another go!”

She had laughed in his face.

And she had joked, mimicking him in her recounting of the experience

to her lady friends during their weekly drink bout at O’Leary’s Tavern,

a neighborhood rousting spot in Revere, North of Boston.

Just another raucous, confidential conversation among friends.

She had roughly refused his proposal.

Repulsed his uninvited offer.

Called him an “old fool!”

For he had couched his proposition in words

which hinted at surrender

and a debilitating kindness in the enabling of each other

through their coming, natural, mutual, failings.

Weathering their troubles to their inevitable ends, together.

She’d dismissed his dying view of living

as a mere weakening acceptance,

as an unforgivable wasting

of what time they still had left to do,

by waiting, humbly, for that dark, shrouded harvester

with the slow, swinging scythe.

For in her, still, flamed a ferocious fire

with which to create by back-burn,

a flaming wall against approaching darkness.

If she would lay herself down, at last,

it would be but to revitalize her exhaustion

after a life of requited passion with a lover who could, now,

though surely not with the power of youth,

but, at least, with the fervor of age and know-how,

do what ever he still could do

and would be aching to try it again,

and then again,

with her, as a more than willing accomplice.

She lusted for a comrade-in-her-arms,

not a signator of an armistice ushering her

into some undesired, just-contented end!

And!

She would have it the way she wanted

or she would do herself, alone,

thank-you very much!

For in the willing to be doing lay her victory!

Even in the face of the protestations of her friends

who might be wishing for just such sterile companionship

as he had offered her,

she scoffed!

For she, at last, would collapse her well-depleted body

into an irrelevant coffin

while her flaming soul soared,

lighting as with lightening bolts, the Dark before her,

guiding her on to her next wild adventure!

After a momentary silence in Shawn O’Learys Tavern,

the applause and huzzahs from all denizens present that night

affectionately affirmed Maude Kilcullen’s

Declaration of Independence!