Your Birthday in Kansas You are Old (too)

If you weren’t one of the wits of the school,
chum, there’d be one more big reason not to get up,
out of town, this morning & next, next, next…
I hope you get one of those big ones, checks,
& lay it all down on Leaves like a fool
like when the world was a weekend of Dixie cups.

When we dreamed as children,
or unawake walking towards something
that we knew somewhere deep we wanted
never thinking one day we’d be haunted
by the fact that we’d never know when
we’d found more of the idea than the thing.

But none of this is what I came to say:
(in a double borrowed style, never mine)
that the thought that you thought it’s worth
[y]our time to pretend and play
to the fledgling minds who know not the day of our births
reminds (& I need a couple extra lines)

that without that shared deception this wouldn’t be worth the drive.
And, oh, happy birthday.