Children of Boom

What do you want to write, the professors ask me.

Do you want to tell me about your childhood

and the way you dug up worms

named them one by one

and buried them back again?

Worms were friends.

So were potato bugs

and bees and ants.

In your swimsuit and young distended belly,

did you wade in mud holes

wondering what was to become of you?

Yes. Of course you did.

We are the children of boomers

born from concrete cul-de-sacs

and wombs

and houses too big for us.

With tricycle wheels

as big as our eyes

spinning our poor heads around,

we are only now

managing to screw our heads on straight.

Our identity is not lost

as the existentialists claim.

Ridiculous.

They want to sound intelligent.

Abyss? No.

There’s not even space

left for an abyss

in this world.

Instead, I fancy us

a giant ant farm

digging tunnels

deeper and deeper

till we hit rock bottom.

Only to go up again.