I`M Too Young To Be Seve, Viorst

Viorst explores, among the many other issues of this stage of life, the state of our sex lives and teeth, how we can stay married though thermostatically incompatible, and the joys of grandparenthood and shopping. Readers will nod with rueful recognition when she asks, Am I required to think of myself as a basically shallow woman because I feel better when my hair looks good?, when she presses a few helpful suggestions on her kids because they may be middle aged, but theyre still my children, and when she graciously--but not too graciously--selects her husbands next mate in a poem deliciously subtitled If I Should Die Before I Wake, Heres the Wife You Next Should Take. Though Viorst acknowledges she is definitely not a good sport about the fact that she is mortal, her poems are full of the pleasures of life right now, helping us come to terms with the passage of time, encouraging us to keep trying to fix the world, and inviting us to consider drinking wine, making love, laughing hard, caring hard, and learning a new trick or two as part of our job description at seventy.