Look at that, I said to my son:
Before your dad was a bad-ass—
skipping out on the Young Calvinists’ Convention,
busting his hamstrings and concussing his head
on a skateboard at fifty miles an hour,
getting kicked out of college
and showing up on the evening news—
he was a flaxen-haired cherub,
with cheeks so chubby and glossy
they might as well have been basted in butter,
wearing short pants and knee socks,
his plump hands folded in his lap.