Life Begins at 40 (On my 40th B’day)

With age everything gets thicker
The waistline, glasses and the shirt-fit
But then you realize – as you stare at your wife –
What a blessing age is, after all, all you have to do
Is to look at the her hips and buttocks
To realize that age is a miracle worker
After all that skinny girl you married
Has now become a little bit of eye candy
– Perhaps even helped a little by your glasses’ refraction
After all being 40 is no handicap
It’s just when age becomes a little slope-like
And you try to find your brakes to slow you down
When the only mid-life crisis is to figure out
When to start taking the blue pill
And that groovy kind of love – is unlike any Phil Collins’s song
It makes you shake her with force – knowing no eggs are inside
When you realize you’re superman in bed
And that blue pill has more life than an ocean
Taking you to magical places
Only Sinbad has been before

Published by Curiosity-driven life (Dilantha Gunawardana)

Dr Dilantha Gunawardana graduated from the University of Melbourne, as a molecular biologist, and moonlights as a poet. He currently serves as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Botany, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Dilantha lives in a chimeric universe of science and poetry. Dilantha’s poems have been accepted for publication /published in HeartWood Literary Magazine, Canary Literary Magazine, Boston Accent, Forage, Kitaab, Eastlit, American Journal of Poetry, Zingara Poetry Review, The Wagon and Ravens Perch, among others. Dilantha too has two anthologies of poetry, 'Kite Dreams' (2016) and 'Driftwood' (2017), both brought to the readership by Sarasavi Publishers, and is working on his third poetry collection (The Many Constellations of Home). Dilantha’s pet areas of teaching and research, include, Nitrogen Fixation, RNA biology, Phytoremediation, Agricultural Biology, and Bioethics & Biosafety. View all posts by Curiosity-driven life (Dilantha Gunawardana)