I would like

to spend all my hours

in all my days

being a child with you.

Together, we are forever

five-year-old explorers

of the great unknown in

simple and familiar places.

We slip past flitting cardinals

to strange and different worlds

with yellow flower boxes

and dusty country roads.

We swing on branches

over electric fences

landing on new terrain

in an old world.

I would spend all my hours

of every night

of all my life

watching the stars with you.

Exposed to outer space 

where the sky is inky blue.

Sitting outside, we watch it

rain shooting stars over Mars.

I will point at them

and you will laugh

and we will lie down

and make secret wishes

we don’t tell each other

so we don’t break the quiet illusion

that we are still children

and have not felt pain.