I’ve been complaining a bit,

About turning twenty-eight.

But I don’t think I mean it.

You’d never start moaning at

The world’s best restaurant

Because you can’t order

What you had before, though

The next-door table gets

To enjoy it for the first time.

Or sigh, when you hit the slower

Middle chapters of a book

That changed your life.

Would you stifle your celebration

Of the third goal, in an eight-nil

Thrashing of your local rivals,

Just because you’re more partial

To a long-range screamer

Than the bicycle kick you just saw?

I wouldn’t break to rub a hamstring,

With only a whisper of soreness,

If I’m on the most beautiful walk

I could ever take— as though

Something might stop me going on.