Red Rover

We take our last walk.
Walls stripped of portraits,
 
warped mirrors, dressing tables,
and the grandfather clock
 
with its stoic face
and elaborate gentle fingers.
 
For years we struggled to break
free of the closeness of rooms,
 
the obligation of birth order,
the metaphysics that bind
 
one element to the other,
as if we were still wild girls
 
playing wild rover in the garden,
breaking through a chain of linked hands.

Copyright Credit: Poem copyright ©2015 by Jill Bialosky, “Red Rover,” from The Players, (Alfred A. Knopf, 2015). Poem reprinted by permission of Jill Bialosky and the publisher.