Descending The Beanstalk

Descending the beanstalk

A small metal hook on a paint-peeled and crooked screen door

was enough to protect us from everything

out of the view of the head of the kitchen table

and the creak of the top porch step

was the only burglar alarm we needed

and fireflies in a Skippy jar with a punch hole lid

was the only nightlight needed between days

named Independence and Labor

and the crackle of 45 RPM was every bit as good as

the quiet of MP3 and the faint buzz of a

transistor radio beneath our pillows was enough to

distract us from the monsters who lived under our beds

and evil witches who hid behind our closet doors

Our PF Flyers and Radio Flyers never really let us fly

but as children we thought we could feel the

speed of sound sonic boom and the wind and power and height

that we now know was only an illusion

because just as bells don’t ring for angel wings

twelve inches above the ground is not really flying

and I am still not flying now - never really could

but I am still up high climbing Jack’s beanstalk

because that is the only place I haven’t yet looked for her

and the ascent is almost impossible

because my hands are blistered and bleeding from her slipping through them yesterday and last week and last year

At first she had wanted me to be her knight

at least that’s what she’d said

and while I was happy to put on the armor

before I could pick up a sword in her name

and joust in her honor

she gave into insecurity and fear and

bit into the witch’s poison apple

evaporating our world of sandlot boys and slumber party girls

and fairy tales with bread crumb trails

And now somewhere unknown she cries herself to sleep and

her tears spill the alphabet and when she awakes from the apple if she can or does

her pillow will read things like sorrow and despair

I’m asked why I write and the answer is pain

because although I love her, she chose the fruit

and I hurt and shudder and leak each day and I know that

my constant headache is God trying to get in or out

as I swing the huntsman’s axe against a glass coffin

that holds her prisoner

Or at home wearing blue rain boots in my bathtub and

holding binoculars backwards while studying a

map of the world shower curtain hung inward

I try to find my way to new lands while

cleansing myself of us, but I fail again

because all I really want is to carry her

down the beanstalk and recuse her of the apple

and push her again on a swirl striped swing set

because I know that each time she glides away from me

she’ll quickly return and as we soar side-by-side and in unison

surrounded by the night’s not yet captured nightlights

she is called in for dinner and runs toward the light

and as she stumbles and skips out of view

I launch myself from the swing and slowly 

fly a foot off the ground and above her bread crumb trail

@Steven Harz 2013 All rights reserved

'Descending the Beanstalk' appears in my eBook "More Pennies Than Water" - available at Amazon