This was published in Pennsylvania English a while ago.
You cried at the street corner
when I crossed over to kindergarten,
but afternoons were our reunion
with the Brady kids, Gilligan,
Fred, Uncle Fester, and Ernie so carefree—
how I wished Bert had more friends
the way we had the mystery of living room forts:
chairs and sheets over Hot Wheel racetracks,
sprawling like cities of the future across orange shag carpet
convenient for its alter-state of hot lava
upon which only couch cushions could float
and save us. Recently I heard neighbor kids
playing the same game, and suddenly knew
our survival scenarios stemmed from ancient practice
when ancestral siblings clung to rich volcanic soil
at the fertile foot of god-mountains.
How we were blessed by birth
and every unplanned reading of favorite books
by a mother versed in tradition and Valium.
Now it's off to work we go,
unlocking doors of information
with a security badge, the key
to knowing why our father
cannot focus his flow of words:
this age of ours arrived too fast.