How can I be age 16. . .then 4?   70. . .3-??
Backflashes keep putting me under the gun.
No sequence, light's sorry, way too much me.
Zilch happens, then  everything under the sun.
 
Start at the beginning, some advise.
Don't tell you how to get Life to cooperate.
That memory fails, or sees more than is wise.
Sticks at times on love waltzing out the gate.
 
So much that embarrasses, so much that shames.
I am not, nor have I ever been, all I would like.
Too different a n d too much the same.
Trophies, none;  patents, none;  barely ride a bike.
 
How many people I have let down,
I cannot bear to think.  How hard I am
to figure.  How hard to be around!
Not even best at being worst.   Damn.
 
Oh, well.   Like they say, it has been real.
I have lain in warm sun; I have walked in warm  rain.
Smelled roses, kissed noses, and let myself feel.
Still got 4 limbs.  Taste buds. . .half a brain. . .
 
Hope to see another sunrise.  One more rainbow,
be nice.  To walk barefoot again in the creek.
Hold hands, ruin a song,  listen to J-Lo.
Willie and Aretha?   Need at least a week.
 
Bring the children to me, and theirs, and theirs.
Tell us all the right things to say and do.
Show me their burdens turning light as air.
Stay until they have emotional Super-Glue.
 
Give me time not to have sex, but to make love.
Let me watch my babies nibble on their toes.
Let me see black velvet'd diamonds above.
Summer, playing with Brother, under a hose.
 
Not under sentence, not that kind of thing.
Just that, you know.  We never know.
Life is a rose.  Roses have thorns that sting.
Keep it warm.  Sweet-talk it.  Hold it just so.

                   (c)  Phyllis Jean Green,  August, 2008