Satisfactory

I needed my birth certificate for the form,

but I found a manila folder instead,

damp at the edges and smelling of glue.

Third grade was a series of boxes

marked with a red-ink C-minus.

'Struggles with focus,' the teacher wrote,

her pen leaking a little on the 'effort' line.

I’m thirty-four and I still can’t finish

the things I start before the sun goes down.