Rage Against

By William Snyder

Age is like love, it cannot be hid — Thomas Dekker

The cafe waitress and a couple at the counter 
argue Mr. Ed: was he mule or horse? 
Round and round and the reasons why
they think so. He had big ears. He had 
really big teeth. Mules can’t talk. She brings 
a refill. Horse, I say, he was a horse. (Francis,
the mule.) She walks back to the two, 
says, he says horse, and in a quieter voice, says, 
and he’s over twenty. Or last March, driving 
Nebraska, and a stop for coffee. The girl, mic 
at her chin like Nashville, brown hair 
tied in a hat, and I order a small and a cup 
for water. She taps her keys, says, a cup 
for water and a senior coffee, 49 cents. 
I don’t want a senior coffee, I say, just a small 
to go. A senior coffee, she says, is 49 cents, 
25 less than a small. And I understand. She’s 
trying to help. And it's easy to see—
the turkey throat beneath the chin, the papyrus 
skin, the downturn to the lips like 
drooping, winter clouds. I think of AARP, 
the stories: The Me I Used to Be, Eight Retro 
Styles to Wear Again! Accept Help Gracefully. 
But I pay for the coffee, the quarter saved 
tumbling young and chirpy in my pocket.

William Snyder has published poems in Atlanta Review, Poet Lore, and Southern Humanities Review among others. He was the co-winner of the 2001 Grolier Poetry Prize; winner of the 2002 Kinloch Rivers Chapbook competition; The CONSEQUENCE Prize in Poetry, 2013; the 2015 Claire Keyes Poetry Prize; Tulip Tree Publishing Stories That Need To Be Told 2019 Merit Prize for Humor; and Encircle Publications 2019 Chapbook Contest. He is just-retired from teaching writing and literature at Concordia College, Moorhead, MN.