How Old Would You Say I Am?
How old would you think I am,
If I asked you, darling?
Could I be a fresh-faced ten
My sailor suit a-curling?
How old could I be to you,
If I asked you sweetly?
Would you call me seventeen,
or twenty as you greet me?
May I be your trigenarian,
Or, older, thirty-one?
Or have I baked to forty-
five in the midlife sun?
Can I be an aging fifty?
May my eyes go yellow, dear?
Fifty-five and eyes a-twinkle,
Or I'll add another year...
May I be your sweetest sixty?
Call me your old grandpapa?
At seventy I'd be a lecher,
You should lock up your mama!
How old would you think I am,
If I asked you dearly?
Could I be all dead and buried,
Open casket grinning queerly?
For you, my dear, I'll be as old
as ever Methusalah did see.
You've but to ask me and I'll answer.
See, I'm up to ninety-three!
As we bid ages, skins all wrinkly,
Looking at each others' masks,
Again, my dear, I'll say you're twenty,
For a gentleman *never* asks.