Two Nine to Ninety Poems: What it is to be nine & Will we make it to ninety?

What it is to be nine

‘Turn out your pockets’
That gentle shrivelling voice I grew to fear
Dismantling, brick by brick
The wall surrounding me
Keeping me safe;
Me as me

Trespassing on my…stuff
But he cannot see
The brass bullet case
The plastic poppy
A Red Admiral folded in old newspaper
Four long nails
A broken rubber tyre, small,
And a rusty harmonica

Curiously blind
Adult but vacant
Looking past my wealth
For what wasn’t there
‘Was it a rabbit?’
A voice inside whispered
I tried not to smirk

Poor man
Little idea of the array
Of things we’d collected
That make for peace:

The blood red poppy
Standing tall in the empty brass bullet
The four nails of the crucifixion
The toy-car tyre, broken,
To be mended with music -
Like most things -
And the butterfly
Possessing a fragile beauty
That can do no harm

I wanted to peer
Deep in his pockets
But he’d long forgotten
How to use them

When I am old, Lord
Please keep my pockets
Open and full
Amen

Will we make it to ninety?

I roll the word Umpteen
Around my tongue, gently,
Like a thinning Polo
Ready to be broken and lost

Like mints, are we caught
In the soft destruction
Of the Almighty?
Digested by parables,
Incarnating their truth?

I was first once. First on the dance floor.
The cha-cha, the waltz
My two left feet and sweaty brow
Eroding my early bullishness
First to fail, first to leave

Was that a dress-rehearsal?
So far, I am spared the grief
Of striking unsteady pencil lines
Through address book names
But it will come. The grief.

Are there umpteen funerals ahead
Or will I again be the first
To hold open the door
For others to follow,
To perfect their funeral attire?

If first to this endlessness
May my wrinkled earth-state
Inflated with impossible joy
Fail to curb my song-filled limbs

Waiting for the tail-end…
…I hope it will be you
Last, but first.
May I have this dance?