on the front lawn the robins hunt their prey, heads cocked, listening for worms while on the sidewalk people walk their dogs—a beagle, a border collie cross, and some kind of doodle—as the relentless April rain drizzles down, which makes my trick knee ache in a way I hadn’t imagined when I was young and oblivious—spurred by some amorphous discontent, I think, maybe somewhere there’s a time gate I could slip through when nobody’s looking, and go back to when things didn’t hurt but what time frame would I choose and would I really trade today’s certainties for the insecurity of university days, when I became Goldilocks, trying things out to see what fit the best—maybe it’d be best to fly further back, to a childhood without YouTube, and social media, when finding a couple of tarnished copper pennies on the street was an occasion for celebration because it meant my friend and I could buy spearmint leaves or gumballs or ice-chocolate at the corner store, down-to-earth treats which we’d savor while we watched Star Trek re-runs and dreamed of space
BIO: Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. Her poetry has appeared in Third Wednesday, Star*Line, Polar Borealis, Liminality, and other venues. You can find out more about Lisa’s writing at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.