Kids

Tell me how it’s going to be—

Seems I’ve forgotten, please tell me.

About the rabbits with two backs,

About the openness they all lack.

My ears wait, perched so attentively,

To greet the lectures laid out for me.

Tell me—

to be?

You must tell! If the time does rise.

They never cared for my poetic tangents,

Soliloquies seen as childish ramble.

Poor dear Horatio, a dog 

Left to a world of shambles. 

A lesser man would’ve laid down,

Giddily rolling in the fleas.

To the late are left only the bones.

The insistent beams feast upon 

The cloaked members of the street, 

Another layer of patience shaved.

The street lights’ life

Teeters in my erratic hands.

Trickled with bruises, my arm 

Casts relief over my brow.

They love to whistle as I pass

“You’re wasting away! 

Soon you’ll be nothing but skin and—“

You arrive, draped on the bow of a ship, 

Heroically shouting commands.

“Onwards and upwards.

Set a course to lady Venus!”

No one ever rises for you.

Your consistent babble of the future

Contradicts your oath to the clan of Pan.

My tedious tendency to unearth the past

Leaves monstrous claw marks,

Permanent decorations on the scalp.

Deeply rooted in the cuticles, 

Submerged chunks of memories.

You once asked me about our kids. 

How I would raise them. 

Who they would be.

I didn’t have an answer then.

I certainly can’t think of one now. 

After all we’re just kids ourselves.