On My 80th Birthday by Sharon Waller Knutson

Breakfast in bed:

a strawberry smoothie

stirred with Stevia

poured over ice.

Lunch in the kitchen:

spinach salad with slices

of chicken and cucumbers

dressed in olive oil.

Dinner in the dining room:

broiled lobster tails

baked potatoes and asparagus

drizzled with melted butter.

In the evening, we dance

cheek to cheek on the tile,

then walk up the hill

in the cool breeze.

How old do you feel and think?

a friend asks. My middle aged

mind answers fifty but Charley

Horse tells me its closer to sixty.

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Sharon Waller Knutson is a retired journalist who lives in Arizona. She has published several poetry books including My Grandmother Smokes Chesterfields (Flutter Press 2014) and What the Clairvoyant Doesn’t Say and Trials & Tribulations of Sports Bob (Kelsay Books 2021) and Survivors, Saints and Sinners (Cyberwit 2022.) Her work has also appeared in The Rye Whiskey Review, Black Coffee Review, Terror House Review, Trouvaille Review, ONE ART, Mad Swirl, The Drabble, Gleam, Spillwords, Muddy River Review, Verse-Virtual, Your Daily Poem, Red Eft Review, The Five-Two and The Song Is…