MAGPIE/ Prompt #44

                                        photo/ willow/ Magpie Tales #44


SLEIGH RIDE

It looked like a hill to me,
a cement sidewalk slanting down to Lydig.
In the summertime I skated
beside the apartment buildings,
starting atop Brady Av,
speeding along Wallace,
passing my building on the corner,
and stopping to unbuckle my skates
for an ice cream when I reached Good Humor.

The metal wheels came to a stop
when I fell or bumped into one of the old ladies
folding her wooden chair,
even sometimes my very own grandmother,
chair in hand yelling, you're going to kill yourself,
who goes so fast, are you crazy?
All in English and Russian and
what was she talking about?

But when the snow piled on the sidewalk,
just around THE HOLIDAYS!!
I pulled my sled out of the creepy storage bin
in the basement of my building,
heard a noise that sounded
like my heart beat
in that pile of Mama's junk.

I grabbed the wooden sled,
caught a splinter right away,
sucked the blood and spit it out,
pulled my Flyer into snowy daylight,
to the top of the hill, my winter paradise,
and away I went, no old ladies in my way,
all sitting at their windows
sipping a glass of hot tea.

maybe dreaming of a sleigh ride
that took them to streets paved with gold,

the way I am today,
and never coming back
once I hit the first star.


@copyright/all rights reserved/ 2010


Thanks, once again, Willow, for lighting my fire!!  Poetry lives!!  Magpie, forever!!


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