In Which A Sonneteer Looks At Forty

As ages go, there seems true magic here:

So many folk have told me how they wish

They could be forty, so it's without fear

I face it now, no longer thirty-ish.

The baby boomers all like to declare

Their current age as "the new forty", so

'Twould seem I'd best get used to being where

I am right now; there's nowhere left to go!

My schoolfellows of old all liked to quip

That I had been born forty, which would make

Me eighty now. It's really no mean trick

To look this good at eighty, no mistake!

But soon enough all will be redefined

And I'll be back to twenty. I don't mind.