Forward and Backward

the future is not

what it used to be.

in childhood

for most of us, there

was

the playground

the woods,

the cold sleeve of a stream.

full of fish

and frogs.

the girl with freckles

playing jacks,

the hollow sound of

a bouncing ball.

the bowling alley

up the street

with the blue curved roof,

the jukebox playing

dusty springfield,

james brown,

where you rolled duckpins

on saturday morning

in a league.

it's where the barber was.

the pin ball machines.

the restaurant full of men

with bellies

and red faces,

smoking. cursing their

luck

or wives, or both.

it was a mix of mirth

and wonder,

a growing disgust 

with adults.

finding out exactly what sex

was. really?

the sketches on the stalls,

the condom machine hanging

on the wall.

that's what they're doing

behind closed doors?

there was school. the books

carried home

wrapped in a belt.

the lunch box.

the beatles. the stones.

baseball cards.

your first copy of catcher

in the rye.

playboy smuggled home

and hidden.

it was a different world then,

and it's a different

world today.

the only constant is change.

you fear the same things

now

as you did then.

the loss of love.

the loss of friends.

what tomorrow might bring.