I want you at 23 but I am old to you at 38
but I know you
suspect this already
taking bites of it like
a ripe delicious apple
with those perfect teeth
looking at me
through the bedroom eyes
of nonchalant youth
feasting on admiration
and attention
from us over thirties
who crave in you
our last grasp at the youth
which was once ours;
now consoling ourselves
with work, money or security,
thinking just maybe
you'd swap the latters
for the true love of the
young men who surround you
in their twenties.

Youth never understands
that age
does not abandon its own youth
rather
our older faces relentlessly
cover its relentless
insurgencies smashing our illusions.

So it is not
just you we crave
but our own fading youth
you represent
as we find ourselves meandering down the years
our minds fixed on how we were
at 17 or 23.

The body defeats
ultimately our youthful sense of agelessness
but that is something that can never be explained
to young girls of 23.

In fact if you approached most of us
we would blush and flee
because it is not you we crave
but our own young selves
at 17 and 23-
selves which abandoned us
for the cheap price of fleeting years
leaving us as oarless dingys
floating on an aging sea.

So as we
console our sorrow
with money or power
which do not sate
we, too, gaze back longingly;
youthful pasts
represented by you
clad now in only our poor cloak
for what was once
our own youthful
youth.

So pass now
sweet sprite
by these older eyes-
apple core
to the ground-
because those seeds within
shall be rightfully
sewn
by other younger
youth's hands.