Passing the American graveyard, for my birthday <br />the crosses stuttering, white on tropical green, <br />the years’ quick focus of faces I do not remember . . . <br /> <br /> <br />The palm trees stalking like deliberate giants <br />for my birthday, and all the hot adolescent memories <br />seen through a screen of water . . . <br /> <br /> <br />For my birthday thrust into the adult and actual: <br />expected to perform the action, not to ponder <br />the reality beyond the fact, <br />the man standing upright in the dream.<br /><br />Kenneth Koch<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/poem-for-my-twentieth-birthday/
