Brandy Lien Worrall-Soriano

That porch swing, white paint chipping and flaking,
those two rusty chains and the hooks that hold them up,
the chains also hold up 90% certainty that we won’t crash
when we sit down, that we won’t splinter upon impact
on the oil-stained concrete…that swing swung us back and forth,
between the past in the back, almost hitting the cherry Chevy Nova parked
behind it, and the future at the front of our extended legs,
toes en pointe toward the hills basking in the orange ooze
of the sinking sleepy sun.

That porch swing was our time machine.
We got older and younger all at once with each launch.
Sometimes we became timeless,
or forever.
But we knew we’d always have to land at some point,
and get up,
and walk away.

Perfection of everything swung on that swing.
If I wanted to, if I could, I’d unhook the swing,
carry it across lands to find different rusty hooks to attach it to,
and it would be something “different,” as Pappy would say
in his sweet feathery husky twang,
to fly into the past and future in other spots,
but I would never be able to find that hill,
that sunset,
that cherry Chevy Nova and the oil stains the car tattooed
on the porch.
That swing, there, will always hold us up.
We’ll never fall down in time.