Sept. 10, 1987

Inside old ladies on bicycles
I see ghosts of young girls,
pigtails flying from beneath their greying hair
eyes sparkling behind thick glasses.

I search in me, for ghosts of hopscotch
and double-dutch, two-***** and tag.
I can feel them shimmer,
holograms of my youth.

I search, too, for the ghost
of the old lady I will become.
I sense her, frail but determined,
fading, but not dead before she dies.

If little girls live inside old ladies,
and age hides just beneath young faces,
there is no such thing as time.