I bear a grudge, stubbornly
as a second grader falls and skins
her knee, rebuffing classmates’
jealous laughter. On two fronts,
she measures strikes against her pride:
why did fate allow her self-
destructive climb, and why
were witnesses so cruel? 

She limps to the school office
where the nurse will staunch
the bleeding, then paint on
mercurochrome, the one
that doesn’t sting. It smarts.
Her mother will feel injury
as though the world unhinged
jaws to tear her daughter’s skin.

My lover didn’t see me dare
that climb, or change the taunting
beauty of that height, or hide thick branches
that invite my feet and hands to reach
and see where I exist above my life.
I don’t deserve the gleaming in her eyes,
the tender pain she bears for me. I fantasized
a path away, circling back into the dense
brush of disappearing dreams.

Grounded to my porch, I find a robin,
following her call. On that thin branch
she whistles out her fortune, first
of June. A breeze rises, bathes her
in the shade. I listen twice to find her,
and then she disappears. She’s taken
to another tree, her singing light.

Another youth, another life.
You cannot have this summer
without storms. White clouds
proceed into the graying sky.
Distant thunder growls and I
forgive the reason that we sing:
the world tempts glory from delight.

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