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