Advice for My Four-Year-Old Self

Son, take some initiative.

As soon as possible, you should
dress yourself. Here’s all you need
to know: Tag in back.

Stop waiting for your busy mother
to wipe your butt, and perhaps avoid
future hemorrhoids.

Start brushing your own teeth
and avoid that bitter day
when she was rushed and haggard

and instead of toothpaste grabbed
your older brother’s acne cream.
Don’t wear your underwear and socks

to bed; they may keep you warm
but your father will just call you stinky.
In fact, do your own laundry;

and since they’ll end up that way,
prefer gray clothes. Stick
with your swimming lessons.

Not because mother claims if you’re on
a capsized boat you’ll drown. Nor because
she won’t let you go to summer camp

because she’s afraid you’ll drown.
Nor because she only lets you bathe
in an inch of water, for you might drown.

But because it gets you out of the house.

David A. Goodrum, writer/photographer, lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His work has appeared in Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Passengers Journal, Scapegoat Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, Tampa Review, among others. Other publications include a chapbook, Sparse Poetica (Audience Askew, 12/2023), and a book, Vitals and Other Signs of Life (The Poetry Box, 6/2024). See additional work (poetry and photography) at www.davidgoodrum.com.