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Chores left, beds unmade.
Free admission.
Enough time to leisurely
put on skates, enjoy hot coffee.
I was glad I didn’t know anyone,
could push along, quiet, even
with the clunk of wheels spinning.
Round and round
we floated together.
Then, “Time in a Bottle.”
That voice, just for us, “never
seemed to be enough,”
We moved, one body, lifted
beyond somewhere.
I couldn’t help but think of “Sunrise,
Sunset,” (newly released),
“Where are the little ones at play?”
How the words left me
with wet cheeks as I looked in
on my sleeping children at night,
knew that too soon
they would move on.
Still, it was Jim Croce’s words
that sustained far beyond
those simple Tuesday mornings.
Jeanine Stevens’ poetry books include: Limberlost and Inheritor (Future Cycle Press) and Sailing on Milkweed (Cherry Grove Collections). Gertrude Sitting: Portraits of Women, won the 2020 Heartland Review Chapbook Prize. Awards include The MacGuffin Poet Hunt, William Stafford Award, The Ekphrasis Prize. She is Professor Emerita at American River College.