When I began to breathe, I watched cartoons
in black and white. TV had seven channels.
I would be president of Saturn's moons.

I spent my childhood writing goofy tunes
about the Callahan and Sumner tunnels.
When I'd stay home from school, I'd watch cartoons

red-white-and-blue as July 4th balloons.
I'd laugh at game shows and their wacky panels
trying to name the lot of Saturn's moons.

Throughout my teens, in blizzards, in monsoons,
I'd study hard and hoist my heavy bundles
of dusty books to rooms of no cartoons.

Summers up north, I'd listen to the loons
crooning their troubles as the gods lit candles
between the far-flung globes of Saturn's moons.

I've seen the suns of forty-seven Junes.
My demons drowse, locked up in phantom kennels.
I laugh at sorrows as at old cartoons
of Stone Age families and Saturn's moons.