The Swing

When the sniper was about, we went on lockdown.
Huddled in a classroom, attendance taken, shades pulled,
black paper taped to the peephole. 
Cell phones silenced. For ten minutes or hours, we waited 
for all clear and pulled 
ourselves from where we’d been.
 
Each time the landscape different:
Some muffled cries, rustle of paper and attempts 
to call home, I shushed 
them down, covered disturbances with a raised finger,
scattered sand. My closet open 
to costumes, crackers, sonnets for the long haul.
 
In the half-dark, cross-legged on the floor,
my skirt scrunched up under my thighs, 
eyes on any movement from the slot under the door
in a room of fallen books, 
backpacks and gym clothes, I remembered 
I gave birth to daughters, 
 
up in the air and over the wall, till I can see so wide.
Rides, and trees and cattle, countryside—a garden path.
Up in the air I go flying again
Up in the air and down
Till the lights came on, the air so blue 
and the tethered, swung, let go.