"Marriage" by Jim Harrison

Confederate veteran and veteran of the Union Army shake hands at Gettysburg. 

I just remembered a serious argument.

On my seventy-fifth birthday I had the firm sense

that I was a hundred seventy-five. She disagreed.

“Look at your driver’s license,” she said. I said you know

the state of Montana took my license from me. She

went to my briefcase and got out my passport.

“You’re a mere seventy-five,” she said.

I said, “How can you trust the government

in this important matter?” I went to bed

after a couple of drinks believing I was a hundred

seventy-five. In the morning I felt

only seventy-five and apologized at breakfast.

I’d lost a hundred years and felt light,

younger, more energetic. As a boy I saw in Life

magazine photos of the Civil War veterans. I don’t

think there are any left, are there?

They would have to be a hundred seventy-five.

Sometimes I remember aspects of that damnable war.

"Marriage" by Jim Harrison from Dead Man's Float. © Copper Canyon Press, 2016.