Ladies Skate

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,”

“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.

 BIO

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.