Love In Old Age

We met in person after only a week of texting on the website where we’d virtually met.

There I’d taken extreme artistic care to display my self on my page like full-plumed Cock Rooster would, with Mystery Woman appearing suddenly and she being, by very far, my best prospect in two months there.

Just in time, by then, like Bowerbird Cock, I’d honed and polished a wizard conversation-sparking question, which luckily caught her interest.

Thus, after the week of text chat growing flirty back and forth, in Manchester our fleshly selves encountered, one winter noon, in a big shopping mall’s Food Court.

There she stood waiting when I walked in, me quickly recognizing from photos, me approaching with a gentleman’s bow, inquiring of her smiling self if it was she.

So then we chose a table and hello chatted, both feeling the warmth. And feeling that, from my old Street Activist Bag, I pulled a Courting Gift:

My Tarot Book/Deck Set, me displaying this unusual artifact and asking permission to gift it, then teaching the basics, she understanding fast, she answering her real life question for Herself, and she’s astonished.

After that we stretched our legs; Holding hands and talking, we strutting that mall from end to end; Then found a bench to sit and talk; Then me proving my uncanny ability to hear her troubles loyally, whatever minutes wanted; Meanwhile me occasionally, intelligently and briefly, without self-pity, explaining mine to her.

That triumph ending nicely, we again rose to walk, but now she surprising me a lot with Sudden Verbal Intimacy: She, in that moment of us rising, clearly intimately innuendo-asking about the Dreaded Impotence!

To which I gladly, and happily, and firmly, and boldly denied, even fondly bestowing a name on the Intimate Member, me loudly declares: “the Old Guy still knows how to stand up”, praise be to my healthy living habits.

Thus with us both relieved and relaxed, we arm in arm strolling nonchalantly back to the Food Court, now a busy crowded space, and we desired refreshment; So of course me heroically shoving into the crowd while pealing cash from my wallet, handing her beverage to her waiting hand.

So she chose a table where we sat, and now of course our conceptually post-intimacy conversation took a teasy flirty tone, sitting back and playing under-table footsie.

So that’s when we realized we’re leaping into love.

For the first time, with a teasy little joke, she called me “Boyfriend”; then I smiling called her “Girlfriend”, savoring the word, a milestone in my life.

But while we’re amorously smiling in each other’s gleaming eyes, as if on cue, I’m suddenly introduced to family! It’s Fate!

Suddenly her teenage grandson hurries in, with current casual lover, and he’s startled, stops to say hello. His girl and him are eyeing us, understanding at once, so I give the lad a firm handshake like New Uncle would, and they hurry on.

So finally, acknowledging and honoring this fated ad hoc ingress to Mystery Woman’s inner circle, I give My Love another Courting Gift; this one expensive, beautiful and rare:

Early in our conversation she’d mentioned finding me on the web, finding my poetry and paintings. Now I mentioned this again and she bespoke the paintings’ beauty.

So into old Street Activist Bag I reach again, now pulling out Poetic Arthurian Romance Novel, with all its extravagant painted pages, I believing it my highest artistry.

In front of her I laid that gift, which she then opened and very generously admired, spending eyes-wide minutes reading its paintings aloud, while running her fingers over them.

But this was that day’s parting gift, for a cloudy winter afternoon was getting on to dark, so our first kisses and I must go.

But there were phone calls, and another day soon, our next meeting, a roadside restaurant convenient located halfway between our homes:

I’d brought flowers, then around three hours, feet touching under small table, smiling, grinning, joking, we sat talking, holding hands, plotting hotel nights or summer vacation; Me openly frankly promising artistic erotic delights.

Since then we’ve continued falling in love.

(- Here is the end of this poem.-)