Steve Shoemaker

Our parents clearly could control our births:
Each one of us born three and a half years
After the other–boys, four boys… Our baths
Could hold two squirrelly kids, but always tears
Would start to stream, if three or more. Now all
Of us at sixty-two to seventy-three
Swim in our own oceans at home, but still
Can shower at the beach house by the sea
In our own room. Our ten grand-kids will scream
As they run up and down the halls, fly kites,
Stomp through the castles in the sand, and dream
Of being oldest, strongest–win the fights
That always happen when the cousins dart
Around–all born three or four years apart.

• Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, Jan. 31, 2016

NOTE: Steve and his his brothers are together this weekend in Urbana, still three and a half years apart! But very much together.