Playground Echoes

The swings were for flight, for pumping legs

until the chains slackened,

air slicing like whispers.

Our palms wore the rust of monkey bars,

calloused against the slip.

It wasn’t the falling

but the rising

that kept us climbing.

You remember her then—

braided hair like rope in the wind.

Memory tugs harder than names

when searching for Mom.

You realize she’s less

a person, more

an echo.

It slinks in, quiet and coiled,

how someone can vanish,

a ghost in a photograph.

What did I hold in my hands?

The weight of clouds, heavy

and hollow like breath.

I’m swinging between keys,

caught in a minor refrain.

I used to leap wide circles; arms

outstretched, feet skimming dirt,

and chase the horizon.

But it wasn’t anything to do with mothers—

just me and the stretch of the sky.