1999

We came home that day,
Ran through the iron-rung gate
And thought we were
Safe.
It was our everlasting summer.
Who could care? It was another day
Under a fiercely mediocre sun.
Until
A voice said “Where is she?”
In the ring that every child knows.
Knows, hears, and
Smells of fear.

The nectarine tree
Gnarled up out of the ground.

Half-Pint, Pa says.
The prairie is a good place
Golden place
With its whispering winds and
Flowering fields. But Half-Pint,
Do not go to the swimming hole
Without me.

I saw its blackly
Charcoal-dead trunk;
Amber blood encrusted
On branch and bough,
And thought nothing.

Beyond the gate
The peeling pale iron-clad
Wheels towards two years of
Just-walking Life. The vestige of
Humanity left in the truck
Stops
Before she is lost, and
Returns our baby to us.

My mother cries, and
Only hours later do I understand;
This is not a golden place.

----

Written in imitation of a Norman Dubie poem for Nature and Poetry. Who knew you could work Little House on the Prairie into a poem about your little sister almost getting run over by a truck? 0_o Also, isn't it strange how 1999 feels nostalgic already?