By Jennifer Cahill
A rope is pulled, becomes taut,
within a “tug-of war” of emotions;
a photon light split; a jagged silver-white
tearing and searing the sky.
The CHEST tenses, the shoulders curve,
pulled inward. The dull fireworks,
stab of something you do not want, desire.
An illusion: the silhouette of a tree
in the wind seems to nod
as it stands under a twilight sky,
to the Spirits;
to the ghosts of children,
who climbed this backyard tree,
the one with rotting apples
that seem to hesitate
as they cling to the branches,
not certain if they want to fall,
but they must.
Summer colors are sketched with chalk,
charcoal shades are as dark as a coal mine,
the daubs of sunlight are a tan yellow,
the apples are a green earth, with a ruby shine..
and the child swung on a white painted board
that hung with two ropes from the tree,
the rope TENSE with the weight
of her body. As the coral emblazoned sky
came closer and closer, as she swung
higher and higher…
Jennifer Cahill earned a Masters of Science in Administrative Studies from Boston College. She has published the poems The Foxy Neutrino and War in the Distance is Better with Arkansas Technical College (2020), and Dusk Colored Wings with The Voices Project (August 25, 2020); Gods Feast on Lost Moons with Tempered Runes (2020). She lives in Massachusetts with her cat ‘Tilly.’