Childhood Aspirations


When I was a boy
I was a bird interpreter,
translating every dialect
of chirp and twitter.

When I was a little older
I never really wanted to be
a doctor,
lawyer,
butcher,
baker,
big deal maker. Instead, a
paleontologist, digging up dinosaurs,
exposing evolutionary newspapers
in splintered patterns
of bone.

When I was a boy
I was polymathically perverse.
I wished to be an astronomer,
charting the constellations
of freckles
between girls’ breasts.

I never really wanted
To be a policeman, or a fireman, instead
I wanted to fly
I wanted to be naked
I wanted to see women in disarray
I wanted to be pathological liar
I wanted the moon to be my lover
I wanted to be copper-
skinned and cool,
I wanted to play
the trumpet.

When I was a boy
I was a bird interpreter. Even though I knew

there would never be any money in it.