Discovery

Grandma’s backyard, 1996
grey winter leaves pressed against slick rubber boots
the limbs of the oak trees enveloped
my world.
At the top of a muddy creek I set a plastic doll free
her blonde hair turned to grey as it soaked in the darkened water
and she descended, along the road of grey gravel.
In the winters, we would land on this road
an abrupt end to our steep flight down the snow-covered hillside
on a blue plastic sled
my cousins and I.
We often climbed onto one another’s shoulders
waving sharp sticks to practice scaring off the cougars
And the bravest of us all would retreat
to the splintering remains of a tree house
barely resting between two thick branches of a noble oak.
In a pack we would roam
near the rusted barbed wire fence, which guarded us from the ultimate mystery.
We even found a car there buried
in the deepest corner of our forest
until we released it from surrounding soil and proclaimed our find
as Elvis’ missing blue car.
We were brilliant warriors of discovery.
We were small.
and we held hands as the shocking current from the long, electric fence
traveled through each of our tiny fingers and plump toes.
Defeated by the red-spotted poison oak leaves
and the impossibility of that barbed-wire fence,
We did not retaliate
We held our youth, warm and heavy, in the palms of our hands.