SWING
Once I pushed my daughter on this swing. Then
she learned to swing herself. Then the urge to swing
diminished—we both stopped pushing.
Now when I push the swing, emptiness
pushes back, the child she once was, a ghost child.
My own childhood, a ghost childhood.
My mother never pushed a swing. It wasn’t
her style to push a child in any way. With every blast
of radiation therapy, she retreated more deeply into
the ghost of herself. Once childhood is shed,
a long slow skinning that aches the way a phantom limb aches,
it can drive you to lunacy, the echo of colors
bleeding out to gray. This swing swings,
pushed by no one. Laughter brined
in autumn’s breeze stopped years ago
although it took me this long to know.
Once I pushed my daughter on this swing. Then
she learned to swing herself. Then the urge to swing
diminished—we both stopped pushing.
Now when I push the swing, emptiness
pushes back, the child she once was, a ghost child.
My own childhood, a ghost childhood.
My mother never pushed a swing. It wasn’t
her style to push a child in any way. With every blast
of radiation therapy, she retreated more deeply into
the ghost of herself. Once childhood is shed,
a long slow skinning that aches the way a phantom limb aches,
it can drive you to lunacy, the echo of colors
bleeding out to gray. This swing swings,
pushed by no one. Laughter brined
in autumn’s breeze stopped years ago
although it took me this long to know.