Childhood summers were patent leather, were dancing
music played above her, were rounded uncles, soft
as cushions who’d raise her, squealing, above
their shoulders then swing her down where she felt at home
with the floor-waxed oak, with the shiny shoe tops,
in a land where pantlegs were real as faces,
to lodge once more in the dancer’s lowlands
where melody fell as a muted boom.
Ocean nights then were soft as chamois, when
she flew up the hill to the shingled palace,
on its run-around porch, in a white-painted
rocker, she’d pull and push as the grown-ups waltzed,
fall asleep guarded by coats in the closet,
be piggy backed home in the whisky night.
What remains of memory measures her lifetime
in intermissions of dancing and shorelines,
a laugh rocked to sleep by a song.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 25, Issue 3.
Wendy Taylor Carlisle lives in the Arkansas Ozarks. She is the author of three books and five chapbooks. Her most recent full-length book is The Mercy of Traffic, (Unlikely Books, 2019.) Her work appeared in two anthologies in 2018, Untold Arkansas (et alia Press) and 50/50 (Quill’s Edge Press.) For more information, check her website at www.wendytaylorcarlisle.com.
See all items about Wendy Taylor Carlisle
