My best friend’s friend, a woman known to thrive
until this year’s retirement, declares
that everyone she knows past sixty-five
has lost at least a little brain. She swears
it looking husband-ward, at hers and those
of half a dozen friends, who show a sign
of cognitive impairment. I suppose
she fails to recollect she’s sixty-nine.

I can’t attribute humor to her. Wit
is not a trait she’d covet or conceal.
She studied what she thought appropriate,
romanced her history, and spun the reel
with filtered focus, blurred photography:
a talisman to slay acuity.