Tommy Paul agrees with me.
Why hurry to grow up?
Talking in the September sun,
the Waveny meadow as wild behind us
as our conversation—
amber, unmowed, entirely unknown
to the rest of our friends in the distance.

I remember wind whipping the fields
and on his face, uplifted,
tossing surprise to unreconciled eyes
that anyone in this wind, this sun
would pull up their hoods and turn away.

That day we adjourned, running off to climb trees
but it came back to me later, like the dandelions
speckling the grass outside last year’s math class.
Citrus suns, they glimmered
ebullient buttons, they shone
until I stuck my pen in Pythagoras’ eye
and turned my mind to the weeds outside.

Look at them, those dandelions!
Bedazzling my daydreams, they freckled my notes
grabbed my eyes as flowers and
wouldn’t
let
go,
they shined so.