JOHNMICHAEL SIMON POETRY

Go back,
back to that age of innocence and joy,
of flying dreams, of magic,
of swinging on willow branches
fishing for tadpoles
French toast for breakfast
of first encounters with the other sex
not a care in the world?

Would I start again,
wipe out all those years
achievements, struggles, loves, disappointments
pages and pages of starts and stops –
my beloved children and grandchildren
perhaps never to be born at all

a tadpole myself
an empty blackboard
tabula rasa
would I?

Somewhere at the edge of the universe
there’s a place
where elephants can fly
and sit around giggling
swishing their trunks and tails
asking impossible questions

and dreaming pipe dreams