by Anne Harding Woodworth
Cookie Blaze is a persona created by the poet, but 89-year-old Penny Starr (above) stripped on America's Got Talent two years ago.
I’m 81, and I want to ask you
if that’s too old for me to return
to the excellent career I’ve had,
the career that made me happiest.
See, I was a stripper. I stripped
in Lou’s bar there in upstate New York,
and sometimes I sang, and sometimes
I stripped and sang all at the same time.
When you’re 81, you need affirmation—you know,
an assurance that you didn’t live in vain,
that you still have the moves, Cookie,
that your crowds still love you
and want to see your new acts,
that they deny anything’s happened
to your skin and your voice.
Oh, maybe I’m a little off-key at times,
and forget a word here and there.
If the crowds were to notice
these trivial changes, they wouldn’t care.
Tell me, is 81 too old for me
to get back up on the stage at Lou’s?
I feel good when you watch me.
Yeah, watch me.
I’m fine for just a few more years,
maybe four. What do you say?
Anne Harding Woodworth is the author of an 8th book of poetry Gender: Two Novellas in Verse and of a 5th chapbook The Spare Parts Saga which looks at the USPS from the perspective of her trying to mail her 2008 book Spare Parts to a friend in Ireland.