One day Lynne mentioned in class (in reference to Keats, lecture by Prof McMahon which should weep you dry) a poem in which the speaker wished he could go back in time to visit his twenty year old self, give him a hundred dollars and assure him everything was going to turn out okay. I remarked this lightly at the time and now I wished I would have taken down the poet's name, asked the title. Now it seems I would rather track down the poet himself, and crying prostrate admit to him that I am his twenty year old self. I am the rumpled broodster in a dirty t-shirt thumbing through old Updike prints. I prowl sheepishly at night. I drink diet sodas and have no back spin on my jump shot. I need to be told everything will be okay. With assurance.

Perhaps this poet has been badgered by the same young men since the poem's publication. My kind of breed has a tendency to harp and maraude. We tend to leach life and maliciously expect the same kind of over-emotional fawning we hate in ourselves.

I wonder what I would use the hundred dollars for. Maybe I'd bum my sister's, fill up the gas tank and go to a local show. Feeling overdressed I'd stand in the back trying to look lonesome. I'd buy coffee on the way home and wake up the next morning to buy a book I'd read too quick or not at all. Or maybe I'd get a nice shirt and tie, wash it once, iron it and lay it out in anticipation of my birthday. I would research the swanky bars and pick the most ridiculous one. I would shave a raw face, polish my eyes a turmoiled glean and order a glass of wine.

But that sounds a little too much for me; either scenario seems like too much work. I'd rather have the 'okay,' because right now I am none too sure.