We are old and dated
and cannot of our lives make any sense.
—John Ashbery
I cringed over thirteen years ago. I’m
such a snotty flacon of prescience, which
isn’t science and is definitely not precious.
Or at least I’m neither. But behold, the
allergic reactions. Maybe back then I
thought I was all that. But it had taken
me so very long. By my standards, at
any rate. Not that I have any of those.
Daddy, is it okay to take thirty-five to forty
years to grow up? But I know what he’d say
if he were here to say anything. It’s something
of his I love to repeat, and probably couldn’t
agree more: You were much more mature at
the age of three than you have been ever since.
