Retirement in Three Acts
I. Old Ties
Striped and solid
Polka dotted
Wide or very thin
Once were knotted
Now are slotted
In the Goodwill bin
II. Growing a Beard
Retired now
I grew a beard
And took a bow
Before a mirror
My wife avowed
That it looked weird
And that is how
My beard was sheared
III. New Career
Should I curse now
Or (much worse now)
Draft my epitaph?
Nope! I’d rather
Write and gather
Poems that make us laugh.
Steven Peterson is the author of the debut collection Walking Trees and Other Poems (Finishing Line Press, 2025). His recent poems appear in such journals as Alabama Literary Review, The Christian Century, First Things, Light, and New Verse Review, and are forthcoming in The New Criterion. He and his wife live in Chicago and escape whenever they can to the Northwoods of Wisconsin.