Johanna Shapiro, PhD
Too soon after my surgery
we sneak out to breakfast
truant school kids
in search of guilty pleasures
But we are grandparents
respectable if rickety
The tang of sea-stroked breeze
is only made keener
and the succulence of the
fruit and yogurt sweeter
by the knowledge of risk
We glance about
surreptitiously
and giggle at our own mischief
Who do we think is watching?
God, with His infinite storehouse
of plagues and vermin?
Or my physical therapist
who has her own commandments
and is likely the sterner taskmaster