Sestina for Kerry

When I was young I had the dreams of youth.
I tore up time and summer days were brief.
In vacant lots, I’d build my secret homes
and did not care if I were found or lost.
I’d spend my days and never note the cost
and built the sweet foundation of my life.

Yet nothing passes faster than our life.
No blossom withers sooner than our youth.
An autumn comes when we must face the cost
of time and learn our salad days are brief.
We’re not allowed to cry for what we’ve lost
nor visit ghosts in long forgotten homes.

Instead, I would wake up in stranger’s homes.
Unwrapping girls like gifts, I lived my life
and claimed I felt that nothing had been lost;
my greatest loves just silly tales of youth.
This teenage pose was mercifully brief
and passed me by without apparent cost.

By twenty five, I surely felt that cost.
Each night, I dreamed of all my secret homes
and modern summers seemed to me so brief.
Resenting every change that came with life,
I clung to toys and passions of my youth
and bought anew the treasures I had lost.

Hate grew in me. I felt that all I’d lost 
was stolen, not the ordinary cost
of growing up. I recreated youth;
I drank alone in those now empty homes,
distrusting any new face in my life.
My days grew thin, relationships were brief.

But those resentments were also to be brief
for Kerry found me, seeing I was lost.
She loved me and with her I’ve built a life.
With her each day was profit, never cost.
Three times, I’ve baby-proofed our little homes,
a steward now of someone else’s youth.

Knowing life is brief, I treasure youth
but now I am not lost. I’m truly home.
Ignoring any cost, sweet Kerry saved my life.