If I'd Gone Straight

to graduate school from college,
I'd be 24 right now,
the year would be 2005.
We'd be sad about the election.
I would have tried to get my Expos kids to vote.
Expos was probably different in 2005.
I'd still have blonde streaks
but I'd live in New Brunswick
and maybe Paul would live here too,
commuting to edonkey in Hoboken
and looking for another job,
(or maybe instead I'd be dating someone who in 2012 is totally going to all these conferences
how awkward for 2012 me to run into this guy from 2004 he has really not aged well
but neither have I)
and I'd be doing a twentieth-century poetry list
and that lady would not have rewritten my Plath esssay
but she probably was already working on it.
And I wouldn't have had all those lunches in Soho
or gotten quite so drunk on quite so many weeknights
and come into work on two hours of sleep and phoned it in and napped at lunch
and maybe less wandering around the park listening to Joanna Newsom who knows
and I don't know, it probably would have been fine

or else it would still be 2012 and I would still be 31
and I probably wouldn't have a job anyway, right?
or else I would be totally directing your dissertation you guys
if by "you guys" I mean your little sister's honors thesis
and I don't know, it's a pretty good honor's thesis
You guys should be proud