Freedom and the Blue Sky

Under once friendly trees
I put my head in the minstrels lap.
The sky was blue above the hospital
with a breeze that carried child screams
across my skin into the leaves.
I closed my eyes to hear the mandolin
play a song like bouncing pennies 
down the stairs in a deserted house
where the old man has just died.
Opened them to look into his sad eyes
and pulled out laughter from inside
where someone else had buried it.

Run away, I had to go, but not far.
Only made it to the swing,
collapsed rag-doll into the cradle
shoved at the ground, and flew.
The laughing kids had no clear idea
that the dripping notes
were the closest I'd ever come to serenade.
Parents looked with protective eyes,
I didn't care what their adult thoughts were
of my grown body 
in the privileged child's swing.
I thought if I could only swing high enough,
I might reach the sky.