I feel thankful

for having been spared

from knowing my future.

The picture of all those

ups and downs

(falling in

and out of love,

the exhilaration

of moving to a new country,

and then a new city,

and then a new neighborhood,

seeing myself as better

than my father,

then realizing

I am him,

the same silly mind,

the same inconstant fire)

would have been incomprehensible.

The doing of a trickster God.

But day by day,

Matthew would say

this feels like normal.

It’s like making pesto in the Spring

and waking up to the kiss of a lover.