This poem will be number sixty
I don\'t know why that matters
but it seems rather significant.
Something of a milestone,
like completing a 5 or 10 K run.
A modest but personal achievement.
Why is it we celebrate turning twenty-one
but not twenty years old?
Sixty seems a nice round number.
The Sixty is the motorway ring-road
around the city I live.
I count the number of poems
like the guy in the Great Escape
marking in chalk the tally-count
of the tunnels he\'s dug
or like a footballer recording
caps for their country
or a competing quiz team
totalling up their score.
How should I celebrate
completing sixty poems?
I think I\'ll celebrate
by writing
sixty one.