From Angela Howe Decker’s chapbook, “Splendid Catastrophe”
Swing
After school,
my beautiful mother would wait for me by the swings.
She’d chat with the other moms,
flirt with the dads,
lean against a tree in snug jeans, gold stilettos.
When I came out of class, raced to her light
she’d step away from the gossip and the smiling men
to push me on the swings.
Even in those crazy shoes, she’d push strong,
tell me to pump my legs.
When I die,
I want death to come to me like my mother,
a wide smile and high, high heels,
hands pressed to my back
firmly pushing me to the sun.
—
This selection comes from Angela Howe Decker’s chapbook Splendid Catastrophe, available from Finishing Line Press. Purchase your copy here!
Angela Howe Decker lives in Ashland, Oregon with her husband, two sons, and way too many pets. Her poems have appeared in African Voices, Hip Mama, The Wisconsin Review, Comstock Review, Jefferson Monthly, and others. She teaches introduction to poetry writing at Southern Oregon University and writes an art & literature column for the local newspaper. Her work appears in the recent anthology, Knotted Bond: Oregon Poets Speak of Their Sisters. Her chapbook, Splendid Catastrophe was published this year by Finishing Line Press.
Leslie LaChance‘s poems have appeared in Quiddity, JMWW, the Best of the Net Anthology, Apple Valley Review, The Greensboro Review, Juked, The Birmingham Poetry Review, Slow Trains, Free Lunch, Chronogram, and Appalachian Journal. She also edits Mixitini Matrix: A Journal of Creative Collaboration. Her chapbook, How She Got That Way, appears in the quartet volume Mend & Hone from Toadlily Press.
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