If Only

If only I had known, I would have stayed home the day

I fell off my trike and broke my nose, stayed at home the

day I was hit in the head with a rock thrown by a kid

down the street.

If only I had known, I would have stayed home when at

school Sister Anne assigned reading Moby Dick for a book

report due in a week, stayed at home on the day when I

failed the math test she handed out in class.

If only I had known, I would have stayed home the day

Ronnie Barker gave me my first cigarette (60-years later

I’m still puffing away at the damned things).

If only I had known, I would have stayed home refusing

to go through my teenage years, stayed in my room when

my parents divorced and each moved away to new and

unknown places.

If only I had known at seventeen with my mother’s per-

mission what the military would put me through, I would

have stayed home.

If only I had known the woman I would meet in my teens,

marry and have children with would grow to be at odds and

completely incompatible with me, I damned sure would have

stayed home.

If only I had I known and not chosen jobs which didn’t

suite me financially and temperamentally, instead I should

have stayed home.

If only I had known that my second marriage would fail as

badly as the first, I should have stayed home.

Oh yes, and if only I had known that old age would bring

disabling pain, loss of vitality and memory, Lord knows, I

would have stayed home.

Had I only known, perhaps I would better off as I started

out to be in the beginning, at home crawling across the

living room floor in a shitty, piss-soaked diaper, crying for

a change.

Oh well, what's done is done. Sure, a few regrets...
Damn it, I'm wet!

                               -30-

Chris Hanch 2-8-2020