Seventeen

Seventeen
  Runs with man-sized hairy calves across a well-soiled field, splattering his tree-branch ankles with autumnal mud;
  Drives with two fingers on the wheel and a casual flippancy, ignorant to the destructive power he yields in a world he is yet to fully calculate;
  Eats – a lot – mostly cereal;
  Regales his siblings at the dinner table with impressions of his quirky physics teacher, causing his brother to spit out his food, which of course only makes them laugh with greater abandon;
  Yearns for distant lands;
  Cringes at social injustice; 
  Scowls at mindless uniformity;
  Remains speechless at acts of terrorism;
  But shrugs at a C+ in math.

Forty-eight
  Exhales;
  Places a hand on the hip that once carried him, snugly;
  And watches him drive away without her.