Poetry Analysis Argument / Research Paper

At a Certain Age BY DEBORAH CUMMINS

He sits beside his wife who takes the wheel. Clutching coupons, he wanders the aisles of Stop & Save. There’s no place he must be, no clock to punch. Sure, there are bass in the lake, a balsa model in the garage, the par-three back nine. But it’s not the same. Time the enemy then, the enemy now. As he points the remote at the screen or pauses at the window, staring into the neighbor’s fence but not really seeing it, he listens to his wife in the kitchen, more amazed than ever—how women seem to know what to do. How, with their cycles and timers, their rolling boils and three-minute eggs, they wait for something to start. Or stop.