Dread of Childhood

by Dan Gerber

Happy you are just the poor soul you are
and not some other poor soul because

what passes for happiness must always end, you
must return, after the giddy joy of Christmas,

to the cold, unloving, isolation, among all
the other isolates, the exiles all sent back

to the prison of their boarding schools, and this
haunts you with the dread of having, again,

to be a child, sent back to every sorrow
you would, with any power, choose to escape,

found guilty of being who you are, the
number on your cell for being born.