Melanie Browne- A Poem

Light as a Feather

Friends
'want to play light
as a feather, stiff as
a board?'
Judy asks,
We are at
Judy's house,
her mother and
my mother
are friends
and four of us
gather around
a girl who is
giggling and
having a hard time
lying still,
somehow,
we lift her
into the
air with just
the tips of
our fingers,
I can't remember
if I help to lift
or am merely
a witness,
this angel with
fiery wings
who soars into
space
and
levitates
I think about this
childhood memory
and try and rationalize
it,
you had an active
imagination,
I tell myself,
it was only
the suggestion,
but I know
what I saw,
of course, she was
probably only
90 pounds,
why do little girls
play occult games
in the first place?
where was the nail polish,
the teeny bopper magazines,
the popcorn,
an occult
version of
Mad-libs?
I can't remember
her ever
coming down,
I worry that
levitation girl
is still floating around
waiting for
the right word,
just the right
moment
to fall back to
earth,
forever doomed
to the romance of
the stratosphere