May 20, 2017

I AM WAITING TO BE A CHILD AGAIN




I am waiting to be a child again
I am waiting to know if it is possible to be
               a child when you’re old
I am waiting to find out just what it is about
               children that I want to be again. 
I am waiting to know if being old is or isn’t
               another part of being a child.
I am waiting to eat the things I loved as a child
I am waiting for rice pudding and corn on the cob            
               and porkchops on Sundays
I am waiting to swallow carefully, the way I did
          as a child
to feel the food going down
I am waiting to be told, don’t talk 
          with your mouth full
I am waiting to write with my mouth full
I am waiting to sign my name to whatever document I 
          have to sign
to be a child again
I am waiting to be stricken with the diseases 
          of old age
I am waiting to know if they are better or worse 
          than measles, mumps and broken arms
I am waiting to be the parent to my own childhood 
     and
I am waiting to be the child to my own parenting 
     because
I am waiting to explore what lies beneath 
          the vantage point of
seven decades done with and
I am waiting to see what the view from the top is 
          because maybe childhood was the bottom?
I am waiting to find out if childhood was the top
I am waiting to wear no shoes
I am waiting to wipe my nose on my sleeve
I am waiting to scribble drawings on the wall
I am waiting to sing made-up songs
I am waiting to lie in bed and not nap 
     but 
          watch the curtains move
I am waiting for the leaping zebras and tigers to 
          jump over my bed
I am waiting to play hopscotch and jump rope again 
and do them well
 instead of always losing
I am waiting to see my old friends and 
          put my right foot in and turn it
       all about.
Turn it all about, turn it all about.


~  March 26, 2013 to use anaphora