Swingin in the Attic

By RACHEL HADAS

 

In Richard’s attic, I
swung on a swing suspended from a rafter
and listened to two fables
read by my host in a voice that sometimes broke.


His son’s train sets occupied the floor.
His family was elsewhere, as was mine.
Or did I have a family any more?
We each inhabited our lives alone,
I want to say, although it isn’t so.

This sounds like allegory, but it’s true.
If we are lucky, this is what we do
at some point: listen, swinging to and fro,
to old stories a fresh voice makes new.
As to their morals we weren’t of one mind,
but we agreed about the ever after.

 

 

Rachel Hadas is Board of Governors Professor of English at the Newark Campus of Rutgers University.

Click here to purchase Issue 03

From the beginning, The Common has brought you transportive writing and exciting new voices. We are committed to supporting writers and maintaining free, unrestricted access to our website, but we can’t do it without you. Become an integral part of our global community of readers and writers by donating today. No amount is too small. Thank you!

Swingin in the Attic

Related Posts

Cover of All Is The Telling by Rosa Castellano

An Embodied Sense of Time: Raychelle Heath Interviews Rosa Castellano

ROSA CASTELLANO
I’m holding a blank page all the time for myself. That’s a truth that I choose to believe in: the blank page is a tool for our collective liberation. It can be how we keep going. I love that we can find each other on the page and heal each other, too. So, I invoke that again and again, for myself, because I need it.

Cloudy sunset over field.

Florida Poems

EDWARD SAMBRANO III
I will die in Portland on an overcast day, / The Willamette River mirroring clouds’ / Bleak forecast and strangers not forgetting— / Not this time—designer raincoats in their closets. / They will leave for work barely in time / To catch their railcars. It will happen / On a day like today.