Later Alligator

I could’ve been a Marine, so proudly I marched
to their hymn in Sister Ascentia’s first-grade class

or a pool shark besting the best by running the table
if my parents hadn’t dragged me home to study.

With my smarts I could’ve been an investment banker
or a CEO with stock options by the score

so I could party on yachts with names like
D’s Dream or Serendipity—the world be damned.

But no: along the way, life thought to infect me
with the love bug, transforming me

into a long-haired anti-capitalist poetry-quoting
sod mindless of dollars and sense and scripture

who risked love’s deep ocean and emerged
a grandpa with an army of rampaging grandkids

hungry for fish crackers, gummi bears, Goodnight Moon
a 1000th time and impersonations of SpongeBob SquarePants—

time transmogrifying into a hobbling old man, heart in hand,
who shouts from the wings “go for it”, “push hard”, “swim”,

as off they paddle through oceans of possibilities,
love’s angelfish guiding their way—

and here it is Saturday 10 a.m. with soccer and swimming
and the youngest needing tending and I’m running late...