a young child sleeps alone
in a nook at the party
while grown-ups talk and talk,
i am sitting at the boundary
between the two rooms,
two ages now, i remember drifting
between being awake and asleep:
awake to being tired and feeling
like no other child, in the group--
only a side-effect of being in a grown-up
gathering--resonated with me,
too young, too old, but it was nice
to talk to the grown-ups sometimes
about being asleep
dreaming
about being awake
as a grown-up
dreaming
about being asleep
as a child.