the Bean Eaters

They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair. Dinner is a casual affair.

Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood, Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good. Two who have lived their day, But keep on putting on their clothes And putting things away.

And remembering.

Remembering, with twinklings and twinges, As they sit on the old, old, cramped, discolored

Wooden chairs Ten—thousand—things They cannot mingle with the world today.

• Gwendolyn Brooks