by Jane Seskin, LCSW
ENTRY LEVEL
My Rite of Passage takes place in the
midtown Social Security office where
all the seats are filled, the air is heavy
with language, the linoleum floor
cracked and dirty and I stand anxiously,
uncomfortably, for fifty-two minutes
holding up a wall. Finally escorted to a
cubicle by a woman young enough to be
my daughter, who sits opposite me and
wants to know from looking at her
computer screen “Why, why no income
was reported for three years in the
sixties?” I feel punched in the chest,
breathless, stunned by the random
question seemingly plucked out of the
air, hesitate then haltingly reply: “I
withheld my taxes to protest the war in
Vietnam.” She looks up from the
keyboard with a huge smile: “Wow,
that must have been a great time!”
“Yes, yes it was,” I tell her, jolted by the
unexpected flashbacks on what had been
a quiet Tuesday morning. Then minutes
after, finished, I leave the office having
been both startled and surprisingly
welcomed into my coming of age.
Jane Seskin is a licensed clinical social worker and the author of 13 books. This poem is excerpted from her book Older, Wiser, Shorter: The Truth and Humor of Life After 65 (2024), published by Tallfellow Press.
Poem reproduced with permission of Jane Seskin.