Eskimo kisses and cheeky monkeys.

 

Ode to a Treehouse   

a poem my cousin Hannah wrote

deep in the backyard jungle
Just beyond my mother’s prized tomato plants and raspberry bushes
I brush shoulders past 4, 7, and 11 year old versions of myself
Scaling the rope ladder (carefully), an expert demonstration for those behind me
Wooden walls tinged green by moss and rot
Leafy, sky-high home of séances and first kisses
Billie Holiday is barely audible through the static of your old transistor radio
Echoes haunting a childhood paradise
Past laughter and whisper soft secrets
A thousand tedious afternoons of gin rummy and daisy chains
Sweet cakes and milkshakes
Daydream dalliance, dragonfly’s delight
Our last days as children
Painted on the inside of our skin
We lay on our backs
Stretched out like laundry on the line
Stargazing through the Plexiglas roof
You say
“In 100 years, no one will remember our names but they’ll still be looking at these same stars”