day while the other slips away. My dangles were swings suspended off braids of twisted metal made from a magnetic magic that drew my bottom to thick leather straps, a perfect fit. My thin limbs decorated with small scrapes marking my day took on a pilot’s strength of lift that pulled and pushed me higher and higher to the thinness of clearer, fresher, safer air. And if I could just get a littler higher, then I could skip in the clouds while licking sugar drippings from edges that my tiny fingers brushed on the way back down. I loved my childhood house up in the fork of the Olympian oak that held me close in her warm hug. Tree creatures were not enemies to fear but were friends living in a private world high above where songs were sung to us by fairies rustling and straightening the house for company. Below, my carpet laid, the perfect size, taking me to granules of toe ticklers that often hid in my torn tennis shoes. Digging with sticks lent to me from the oak, I could hear the faint voices of little friends from China who were sending greetings from afar. I wonder where they grew to and if they lost their balance smudging chalk across forgotten pavement. The lonely dangling knot swings and my penny for hope forever lost from my shoe. I lay across spades of green pressing my ear to a tickle of yesterday while earth creatures welcome me home.
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