By: Jenni Taylor

Can I? Can I? Please? Please?

Start an orphanage in Africa
Live in Hungary and then move to Turkey
Float down the Nile in a raft
Play the ukulele
Fly an airplane and wear a hat with silly fur flaps?

I want to eat an ice cream sundae in Paris.

Can I hug all the kids who don’t speak English? Can I get sticky kisses on the cheek? Tears and snot on my sleeve?

I would very much like to sit with you beside the river and simply not speak at all.

But now- NOW, I want to talk talk talkity talk talk talk and laugh so loud the tourists turn around and make quiet-like faces at me.

And then we can sit some more. Then it won’t be you- it’ll be someone else, someone new, and then him, and then her, and maybe a few of them and us mixed together. Then the sun will go down and come up again and there I’ll be, on the park bench, by the river, talking and listening and think think thinking like one of those whispy clouds floating by.

I’ll think about how nice it is, that orange of the sky with the blue of the water. I’ll think about how nice it is, to have peace after a sad sad day. But then?

Then I’ll stop thinking so loudly. I’ll quiet down, take your hand, and we can walk home together- home to the lights and the laughter and the clean and dirty smells and sounds of everything around us.