The Place Where We Used to Play

for Luann

The stump of the locust tree roared
When its body fell away from it
In the April wind before the land
Clocked its beat into her, the roar
Evident in the toothy spears of bark
Stalagmited from its edge, the hollow
Of age rifled by coon, snake and beetle.

Do not believe that she lay down
And wrapped arms around the stump,
Nor danced on it, nor traced patterns
In its surrounding carpet of moss and dirt.
What happened was her dead cousin
Came to get her and led her away
Into the story of the past she undreamed
The thirty years she had been gone.

–Shaun Perkins