In early youth the forward flow
was languid, as on summer afternoons
when two o'clock naps
stretched slowly into four,

and I pushed and pulled,
watched calendar pages fall,
yet I could not force the years ahead.

Then downhill time began to coast,
and two-ton years gathered speed,
their weighty bulk falling
through sleepy adolescent nights,

until I awoke to find them
flowing forward, gathering motion,
my days careening out of control.