When I Was Older
My mother said I'd understand things
when I was older.
I'm older.
Things make more sense.
That's what I tell people
while waving my hands a lot.

Strange child! Odd girl!
Never rightly socialized. Still
sometimes thoughts drifted to
vague somethings --
an unimaged dream
not yet even clumsily
close to existing.

Late come to me,
the idea of believing,
of walking through the home-door
into a forever smile.
This, momentarily making sense,
now a fugative future
one person shy of reality.
But I find solace:
no child-dreams are broken.

I am older and still
mother-naked of wisdom.

29 October 1996



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