Write about it.
Sing.
Breathe a trail into the air
so you can turn back later,
remember yourself.

Age eight.
Tutu stiff around my waist,
I danced under the backyard pecan tree.
First ballet concert, half an hour.

Inside, my dreamtime donkey brayed
from the hallway near where mother
pulled her best dress over her head.

Ronald’s picture close to my chest, I pirouetted.
We flew through the fallen leaves,
expectant pecans dangling like dark plums
against a marmalade sky.

I thought that sense of safety would go on forever,
that family, friends would be like those pecans,
not the leaves dying beneath my feet.

The girl who lived in my house later
dug up my cat from his burial ground where I danced.
One day, loving flesh,
the next, an archeological experiment.

Take my hand.
Stroke my face.
We will become plums, seeding
fresh memories into the shifting ground.

Pris Campbell
©2008



Graphic by Pris Campbell from personal archives, 2008



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