Circle

And so life is the perfect circle. First
there are your parents who will comfort you;
they'll teach you how to do without them. Then
there is the time that you'll go shares at it:
you and your lover, taking turns to hold
the other when there's need to; doing so
together, for better and for worse, to turn
sole comforter in your own children's youth -
some fifteen, twenty years, then back again
to just the two of you until you find
there's only one of you that's left behind
and in sore need of comfort. Then you'll reap
your crop and smile - or cry yourself to sleep.