When I was very nearly five or six, or just above,
big people, momentous mobiles, with hats, perhaps,
hung around my apartment
selecting moments
just as I was really very happy and most excited,
saying
‘ Andrew, act your age!’.
I’d say ‘Surely, that’s a tautology if ever I heard one.’

When I was very nearly twenty three or four,
lovers, naughty puppies, (not literally), took to my bed
in little else other than frilly knickers
or not, even,
and when I was really very frisky and most excited
would say:
‘Act your age, Andrew, for goodness sake!’,
looking round at me with their bottoms sticking up in the air, illogically.

And then, just recently,
everyone - numbers mainly - hung around by wires
with a smack of the lips sending continental kisses
intercontinentally,
an answerphone, with automatic logic excited,
said to me, outgoingly:
“ This is the late twentieth century, so you know what to do.”
So I left a message after the beep
and then went out and cloned some sheep.

© Andrew Downs