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Julianna May
We are best friends
my brothers and I
two older, one younger,
play dress up:
they are cowboys, I
the princess
around which they gallop
Daddy points to me, asks
“who is she?”
one answers “sissy!”
“No, son
she’s the princess”
he lifts me up on
towering shoulders
and they chase him
trying to win me back until
girls have cooties and can
no longer play
in mud and hidden
teepee in the woods
they say dress up and pretend
are for sissies
but they hoist sails
on the playset –
captains of a ship that spits
out enemies
and I drown in onion grass till
Daddy puts me on
his shoulders, carries
me inside to baby sister
and mother at the stove.
Tag
Julianna May
A chill cowers
in my fingertips
like white ice over a field’s expanse
behind the red brick church.
Ghosts of children canter past
casting shoes and tights aside
after congregation choruses
"Amen" convening for corn and beef.
Laughter fogs the air,
ghost children hide behind
gray stones, marked birth
and death, catching breath.
When ice begins to melt,
sun rises, children solidify
to watch me
fade away
Julianna (she/her) is an ex-horse girl, ex-Christian, and ex-hetero. She loves teaching English and ranting about Shakespeare. She has previously been published in Crepe & Penn Magazine, Nightingale and Sparrow Magazine, Wingless Dreamer Anthology, and others.
