When I was a child

I liked going with my grandmother
to visit her old friends, also widows
in houses with massive sideboards,
upholstered chairs, fringed velvet tablecloths,
antimacassars and ticking clocks,
stuffed parrots, china ornaments -
and in one a Victorian jack-in-a-box.

I have always liked wrinkles
on the faces of women and men.
I am almost 80 and almost without wrinkles,
not even on my belly: I remain immature to the end.