Childhood

Childhood

A peach hanging in the sky,
overripe, dripping juice
down your windowsill.

Robots and teddy bears scattered
on your patchwork quilt, old kings
and queens make you stay for bittersweet tea.

Through stained glass windows, the magnolias
stick to trees in tufts like sickly
sweet cotton candy.

Dinosaurs roam
in the distance, moving slowly
through dewy grass, gleaming teeth
and claws, obscured by the mist.

Shooting stars are rickety spaceships racing
your dreams across the night sky, followed by
cookies and spilt milky ways.

The gardens grow long forgotten toys, broken
yo-yos drip rainbows that pool
and swirl, staining your memories
with polka dots, sweetening the smell
of grandma’s gingerbread,
trapping you behind that white picket fence.

~Fall 2008