Felicia Nimue Ackerman: ‘Don’t call me older’

“Old Age Be Not Sugarcoated’’

(First appeared in Light, https://lightpoetrymagazine.com/)

Your language has me groaning.
I hate to be a scold,
But please don’t call me older
Instead of simply old.
And even worse is senior.
It makes me quite irate.
I haven’t been a senior
Since 1968! 

— Felicia Nimue Ackerman is a Providence-based poet and a professor of philosophy at Brown University.