Sandra’s recent reverie about summers past reminded me of a piece I wrote a while back.  (Okay, it was decades ago. In the 80s!) A little light something for your weekend…

On summer nights when we were ten

we played hide-and-go-seek 

and snake-in-the-grass,

Red Rover, Red Rover, send Johnny right over—

That was the summer Melissa and I built a fort

from cardboard boxes and carpet remnants

we pulled from the bin in the alley.

We gave the fort a name and we made the boys

KEEP OUT. 

Afternoons we took trips to the liquor store

for chocolate zingers, three to a package,

Dr. Peppers and Abba-Zabbas,

swap-a-pops and sidewalk sundaes,

we’d feast on the curb in the shade.

Neal got asthma if he laughed too hard,

Dutchess had puppies and in the cool garage

we were Princesses in cone-shaped hats,

soft old robes and party dresses,

borrowed high heels and bedroom slippers.

We put on wigs, we were the Monkees,

we put on records, we were the Beatles,

we put on shows and charged our parents

fifty cents to see us.

We dug a huge hole and called it the Pit

dug trenches and tunnels leading to it

It was wartime, it was hideaway, 

it was cool in the dirt in the dark.

The backyard was an ocean and we each had boats, custom-made, 

with kitchens, glass bottoms, and gear-shift sticks.

We found monkeys on neighboring islands,

pet dolphins who swam with us every day, until dinnertime.

And after dinner and the street lights came on,

before the mothers called again,

we’d lay on the grass stained and exhausted,

sweaty and convincing ourselves that 

the whole universe was in a box

and the box was in a giant’s hand

and the stars only  pinpricks in that box

and if he chose to shake it?

Nearly made us 

lose our sense of

gravity.