Vintage Feelings

do not tell my mother
the things that I have done,
I want to make amends–
but how can footsteps
retrace themselves
in a sandstorm?
even ears retch
at the sight of the adjectives
that describe the things I have done.
I want to be a child again,
5 to be precise,
still the only son of my mother,
learning how to recite
‘there were two little black birds
sitting on the wall’
with the innocence of the birds
I was reciting about.

Younglan Talyoung