Future Farmers

He was about my age.
When we went to the pub
with his father,
we both felt big
for our britches.
One night we went to a meeting
he was supposed to go to weekly,
a meeting of the Future Farmers
(his father being one of the biggest
pig farmers in the shire).
All I could think,
standing around a barn
with a bunch of young, English
Future Farmers was,
"I wonder if I'm anything more
than a Future Fuck-off."
A couple of decades later,
I look back and realize
I almost became a farmer, of sorts,
myself. Almost became
a farmer, and a writer,
and a musician, and a friend,
and a husband, oh, and lets not forget,
a lawyer, and an activist,
and an altruist, and a real man.
Almost. Still I think
now-and-always Fuck-off is
really more like it,
really, if I'm honest.
And I'm okay with the moniker.
God knows I could never be a suit.

(2006)