May 2017
Kate Sontag
sontagk@ripon.edu
After 22 wonderful years in Ripon, Wisconsin, I am happy to report a successful move to the Berkshires with my husband and two spaniels. Co-editor with David Graham of After Confession: Poetry as Autobiography (Graywolf), my recent publications in addition to V-V include SoFloPoJo, Villanelles (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets), and Cooking With The Muse (Tupelo). I have work forthcoming in Crab Orchard Review and The Crafty Poet 11 (Terrapin Books). Pantoums are in my DNA, and I am grateful to FF for accepting so many of them.

Swings    

 
Child of sun and adrenaline,
always on the verge of vanishing,

enraged by dusty earth one second,
joyful at wholesome sky the next,

flying through backyard trees,
kaleidoscopic beach towels drying

on the line, the air a fever of honey-
suckle and eucalyptus, your spine

topsy-turvy, head spinning
inches from the ground’s whorl

hard and soft, angled and smooth
while you climb steadily toward California’s

horizon, your legs fierce fathers
on the updraft, submissive mothers

on the way back down, the seat’s rough
fabric holding you in, your brother hand

gripping one cold chain, your sister hand
gripping the other, beyond cliff’s edge 

a blue expanse of ocean, bottomless
as your girlblood’s desire to fuse

seen and unseen self into one ever-
lasting body, sturdy as a swing

set whose poles rattle and resist 
rust in waves of grass and grace.
 
 ​​© 2017 Kate Sontag
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