I'm not sure yet

That summer, you were twelve and held
against your fresh skin
fruit just taken out of the refrigerator,
craning your head to the side
as the condensation beaded
upon your grinning cheek and slid down your neck.

They say it is a sin
to eat a fig before it ripens and I
believe them.

When you were fourteen, I saw you
walking without shoes among the overripe and fallen figs,
careless of the sugary waste or of the flies
or of the sticky piles, careless
even of that portion of life which
would not be lessened.

Seventeen and nearly starved of death, rushing
through tangled old hedgerows by bicycle, you leaned
into the turn, letting one leg slip
off the pedal, kicking it out, straight and solemn.
I saw you as you came around the corner nearing home—
the sunlight could not hold you—bursting
beyond and through its gleaming
and leaving it to laugh sadly off your twisting handlebars.
The glowing silver so relentlessly blinding
that I had to turn my face. You did not see me
and when I turned back, I saw only
the last of your streaming hair
as you rounded past and disappeared.

I did not think you wanted the government job,
did not think you apt for stacks of unopened letters,
for dreary boxes which filled themselves thoughtlessly,
the ghosts of hands, the unsteady trace of fingers
lingering over what they had produced, waiting
if not to give thanks at least to curse you
should you fail to place them properly in the end.
And what else is there, could there be? Would it not
be better if you saw it now and were done with it,
but you are one and twenty and all the world is large
and brilliant. This will fade and beneath the glimmering patina
you will find the unfathomed depths of dullness
that are the Postal Service. Yet you must live
youngly, youthfully, dutifully, deeply, enough—this
is long enough.