Question Me

If you asked me
“Who is your inner child?”
I would smile, because
I don’t believe that question.
There is no inner as there is
no outer. But next

I would tell you that I
remember when each sun was
a smile and when hours would
pass as I drew in ink on white
paper so many faces, animals
and situations that would engulf
me completely so that time means
nothing. I would tell you that

I could swim all day, do one
thousand flip turns in a row
without a clock to show me that
time passes no matter. I would
say that I might lie on my back
in the cool warm grass while the
dogs licked my face and I giggled

until my belly ached. That there
is no first nor last. That I remember when
some days the sky was grey and clouds
dropped cold rain on me in my blue raincoat
and my eyes were heavy and in my chest
a stone and my head would pound. But those
times were romance and how noble I was
to suffer them. That is my answer.

And there is more: there are poems,
there is light. There are birds;
I play Bach on the piano.
There are arms and words.
There is sleep and there is running.
And my heart beats steady a rhythm
that began the moment I was born.