MR. AND MRS. P. FANTASIZE ABOUT MOVING OR ON THE ADVANTAGE AND DISADVANTAGE OF HISTORY FOR LIFE

New architecture—how will it manage, poor thing, to house

our age-old problems.

We’ve barely matured for regular employment,

sobriety and patriotism, and now our children

discover for themselves the deepest dilemmas,

lie on the couch all day

and stare at the ceiling, as if it were the window

from Przybyszewski’s play. (Snow,

if they remember correctly. A little red book.)

Time to tell them at last that with “the fin”

on the head and wearing an angler’s fatigues

they represent a classic tangled mess,

and it’s not that we’re conservative.

Time to drive it home that getting together and watching

South Park doesn’t invalidate compulsory education,

and sneakers in winter is still more a topic

for the internist than a fashion designer,

although the link to the “Global Warming,

The Numbers” site is certainly worth bookmarking.

We look at them with horror.

Then at each other. And again at them.

(This crossing really does require caution.)

Even if they’re not the same as us

twenty years ago, they’re still basically similar,

and the loud thesis about the gap between generations

is simple propaganda, for which both sides

reach with equal relish.

So maybe they’ll grow out of it. Children. Sooner or later.

Or maybe the winding path of self-analysis

holds another unpleasant surprise for us.

Old architecture—how will it manage, poor thing, to house

our eternally young problems.