You can keep second childhood, 
always under a watchful eye.
Too old to drive or walk without help.

Life in slow-motion.
Groping for words, names,
there, but not when you want them.

As a child I dreamt of being grown-up, 
autonomous. What I know of this second 
time-around is dependence returned.

Though there are many me’s within me. 
Old mixed with young, a play in progress, 
scenery and costume changes,
repeat performances:

A cookie gobbled before dinner;
a licked double-decked sugar cone. 
Nightmares after Karloff, Frankenstein. 
Pinning a tail on some donkey.

The ageless awe and wonder at a night sky, 
a first quarter crescent and its craters, 
Jupiter and its moons above to the left, 
Venus to the right, aligned, luminous.