the space above my ears.

Pinwheels

It was over by the edge of the road,

On the softer gravel.

Right at the front of the yard where everything disappeared into the highway sounds.

We watched in awe as every floating lantern we every lit came back to us.

We collected them like Easter eggs and stuffed them peevishly into our pockets.

Let's go back to the house, I want to break the piñata.

As we walk past the island flowers, we hear that the wind chimes on the front porch have gone flat.

Their crumpled notes migrate through the walls of the garden shed, orbiting once around the flickering lightbulbs before winking out into darkness.

The birthday party is on the other side of the chicken coop.

I cringe when I see that the inflated bouncy castle is all but infested with vermin.

Termites munch at the plastic membranes.

Helium balloons wilt and wrinkle and the sky turns the color of disappointment.

There's a voice like two tin cookie sheets hitting each other over and over, always to the beat of the fire pit song.

It is saying something, but I don't know what because it has already deafened me.

I melt like candle wax back into reality and I realize there was just an eyelash in my eye.

Of course.

We were so small, hiding up in the trees and giggling relentlessly.

I remember dragging the lawn chairs up the ladders and pretending they were every type of furniture.

It was too loud by the highway, we decided, swaddled in our youth-size sweatshirts above the ground in our newfound nook.

Back at the caramel roll house, we played hide and seek in scrappy costume jewelry and Christmas dresses.

We had contests based on the criteria of things like who could better impersonate the cuckoo clock, or who dared to touch the pendulum swinging eternally inside the mahogany grandfather by the steeper stairs.

We got tired of trying to understand all the Roman numerals, so we played obscure games on the frozen lake until summer came in a bliss of white horses and vows under flowery arches.

Plastic pinwheels spun in the front yards of all the houses in dizzying flurries of color.

I fell asleep in the grass to the sound of a corn hole game and chirping cicadas.

I woke up in a quilted cocoon.

I am so grateful for the melting popsicles.

I whisper a soft thank you to the sky for the silver boom box and scratched CDs.

The sun sank slowly into the lake and our parents herded us back into the cabins.

As the cedar-flavored air put us to sleep like ketamine, all we knew was the sand in the sheets and tranquility we never knew was fragile.