Push Me
Sept 10 2021
Gripping the chains
legs straight
leaning all the way back
I felt giddy with weightlessness.
For a thrilling second
suspended at the top of the arc
I was an astronaut
beyond the pull of earth.
Then plunging
body hunched and legs clenched
I cut the air
falling faster and faster,
the landing pit looming
with its scuffed bare dirt.
Up and down
on the playground swings.
Kids
who can do this incessantly;
even the timid ones
but especially the daring.
Who goose it higher,
release their grip,
extend their bodies as if possessed,
flicking open like switch-blades
every muscle tensed.
Push me, the toddler insists
to the weekend dad.
His uncertain hands
against the child's back
give a gentle nudge.
Such a precious moment of touch,
and he too feels as high
as the first man in space
tethered to the mothership.
I don't have kids. I'm not divorced. I was never married. So who knows where this poem came from, and why to me. I think I may have read something evocative that referred to a swing, and thought it would be fun to riff on it. But the weekend dad? Is it just a cliche that I fell into because I lack imagination? But even if it is, I like how this came out. And after all, my poems are not autobiography. I'm far more an observer than a sharer.
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