Someday the end of August won’t mean schedules
.
Someday, it won’t mean trips to the store for new shoes.
Someday, I won’t have to worry about the right classes,
Or the friends that didn’t call through summer blues.
Someday, they’ll buy all their own underwear.
Someday, they’ll buy all their own clothes.
Someday, I won’t have to remind them
To brush their teeth, scrub their faces, blow their nose.
Someday, they’ll be over their acne.
(That’s what I tell them–I’m fifty. It’s a lie.)
Someday their friends won’t be quite so frightening.
(Sometimes my friendships still make me cry.)
Someday they’ll know how to cook,
And for dinner, I’ll be on my own.
Someday they’ll set off to live elsewhere
Than this crappy house, the only one that they’ve known.
Someday.
Not today.
Today they’re still under my roof.
They’re still giggling when they should be asleep.
We’re still broke from buying new backpacks
And notebooks and jumpdrives and markers and glue sticks
(My God when did supplies get so steep!)
Someday, it’s me and my Mate and my dogs.
Someday, we’ll text when we can.
But today they’re still mine, they’re still young,
They’re still here.
And I know–in my heart, with all my soul, in my joy,
Just exactly how lucky I am.
