(Old ladies’ Keep Fit class – with ribbons)

Our bodies are old and scarred and stiff,
But our numbing fingers still can hold
The sticks with yards and yards of bright ribbon –
Lilac and scarlet and green and gold.

A Viennese waltz booms out from the box
And we flick the ribbons – away they go!
High overhead in swoops and swirls,
While our feet trip in the dance below.

We laugh and gossip, fold ribbons away.
(“So Janice is dead,” we say with a sigh.)
As we stumble off to the car and bus
Our souls with the ribbons sing and fly.