Grown Ups

When I was seven,
I played house with my little brother just
because I knew he wanted me to tell the story
of our brief imaginary lives: once I was a lost heroine
who came to the axeman's shed, so I taught him to sword fight
in exchange for a magical blade he had come across
beside a river. By the creek behind our aunt's
apartment he stopped me to ask
what I wanted to be.

"To be?"
"As a grown up."
so I told him, "A poet."

and years later, we sat beside the same
creek, this time a beer
in my hand and a joint
between his fingers. He asked again,

"Been thinking about
a career?"

so I told him, "Pediatric nursing."

We finished my case and his weed
by eleven.