I know I was a handful: scared my mom
and stunned my dad with willfulness and heat.
Wicked-bright and booming like a bomb,
I overfilled our den. I wasn’t sweet
and patient. I defied the girl-police.
I had too many aims to watch each phrase
or modulate. I labored to increase
translation of existence’s displays.

I wasn’t good. But I survived to old.
And as I edge toward 70, I see
my peers releasing attitudes controlled
till now, repressed by their civility.
My crony crones are petulant with age,
as I allow my sweetness to engage.