tie your bows tight

When the Bow Breaks

I loved the swing in our back garden;
I would swing alone for hours, free
to kick my shoes through the hardened
dirt beneath, stretch to touch the tree
that grew by the swing in our back garden.
My legs wrapped under the wooden seat,
I swung back, looked up at the bar, then
plunged forward to the familiar creak
of the noisy swing in our back garden
complaining as I dangled underneath.

That creak worried me; the chains were bound
to break. Looking up I fell back, hands still round
the links, my head a crude brake, slowing me down,
harvesting dirt until I let myself crumple to the ground.


© Matthew Joseph Johnson, 2009