The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Patric Pepper
Poem Written on the Back of a Teabag Wrapper
It’s so long ago it seems Like a few minutes ago Mother dressed you for April wind And sun as bright As it can never be again Let you out the kitchen door Said something about not roaming too far You didn’t know it then And she didn’t know it then That you had already roamed too far Onto the next acre next door And next acre next door to that And that and that Down the-dirt-road-behind-all-the-houses Road that sent up clouds of earth When an elderly man drove down it toward home Each evening in a black car Shaped like a lady bug dressed for a funeral No, Mother didn’t know and you didn’t know How you already swung— Pendulum of now that you were and are— On a distant neighbor’s swing set Swung and swung already back and forth—enchanted Till bored stiff with an entirety you could not name You let go, you vaulted Flew from the swing Were brought down to earth By Newtonian physics with no inkling That quantum mechanics would put you In many places at many times at the same time Just another particle of near-nothing Yes, it’s so long ago that today You fly yourself like a kite Look down to see—yourself Sprawled in the tender grass Gazing at clouds Beside a swing set Pretending as all good children do To be dead Which you were and weren’t And are and aren’t So there you are in the grass Still looking back At you Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |