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My granddaughter is just a baby,
Much like any other maybe.
Retrousse nose, rosebud mouth,
Bald as an egg, soft as butter;
A little pink mammal -
Sans hair, sans teeth, sans talk,
Sans table manners, sans walk.

Now I see her frown and smile,
Totter bipedally
From knee to friendly knee.
Success is putting one foot before the other.
Although strangers in supermarkets
Remark what a funny little boy she is,
There is a definite femininity
In the way she manipulates
Her grandfather.

You know that dumpy
Old woman at the busstop,
The one with varicose veins
And hair with the lilac perm?
The old fellah with paper skin,
Stooped and bald,
Still wearing a tie,
Regimental stripes and gravy stains?
Of course you know them,
The generic old person
We all become.
Success is putting one foot before the other.

I try at least to be idiosyncratic,
My hair in a ponytail,
My tie of Van Gogh’s sunflowers.
(Did I really say “tie”?)
I try to convert Jehovah’s Witnesses
To atheism.
I am rude and arrogant
At the bridge table.

My granddaughter
Is a personality,
An opening flower,
A burgeoning intelligence.
I am a little grey old man.