On Summer Days, Age 7, I Became a Cowboy
CW: adoption/foster trauma
and my bike a stead.
Together we rode
under a broiling sun
to Huntington Park
where a forest glade
offered shade and a place to camp.
Twigs and branches
made an unlit fire,
I ignored the chatter
of playing children
with their mothers
and imagined myself
on green rolling hills
grazing cattle
safe in solitude,
free from fears of my foster mother
and the wooden spoon
she wielded against me.
Alice G. Waldert is a poet and short story writer. Her work has most recently been published by Canthius Magazine, The Evening Street Review, and the Rockvale Review. She holds an MA in Canadian Studies and an MFA in writing. She is currently a visual arts student and divides her time between writing poetry and drawing people and places.
The Marbled Sigh 