One evening as I walked my dog
I came across a pair of shoes
Lying there beside a log
Not exactly breaking news
Still I couldn’t help but wonder
Who would ditch their size sixteens
Did they hate the rainbow colors
Or the oddly random seams?
Or perhaps some bozo missed them
These huge and homely shoes I’d found
And rather than dismiss them
There I stood, missing a clown.
New year this
Twenty eighteen?
In a count it found no eight teens
From thirteen to eighteen sixteens
Then this year twenty sixth teen!
this sweet sixteen self should not dare sail away from the safe habour
no matter how sweet-talking boys are or archaic parents sound
it has dumped dollies for ‘fun’ boys and has privileges and rights
but one day it has to unlearn the habit of turning on lights for
romantic rather than economic reasons when other sixteens’
ballooning bellies heave in sight because of boys` menacing
lethal guns or when their bodies lose their natural radiance
because debauchery has ruthlessly ravaged them and turned
their age absolutely upside-down
with moderation and vision and honesty l have to enjoy life
because time flies faster than a silhouetted butterfly
18 December 2012
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