The Elderly
Posted in Uncategorized on August 2nd, 1978Elderly people walk with pinched hesitancy
As if ashamed of the space they occupy.
“Where do they want us to go?”
Whispers a pale woman to her stooping companion
On whom she leans as they toddle into the theater,
As if the management had ordered them
To come and enjoy themselves.
Their faces scrunched
Into the same expression of supplicating compliance
Above compulsively immaculate clothes,
Afraid to laugh at original humor,
Afraid not to laugh at the conventional funny,
They have traded individuality for acceptance
By a society which regards them as burdens.
Prudy Sutherland
2 August 1978