Are you coming out to play?
The question brooked no delay
When I was little.
Red boots on, yellow jacket
Buttoned up by Mum
Opened up spontaneously
Up the apple tree

Now older, this request
Became a deeper test.
The only game in town
Was John and Joe
And wedding bells
Tolled the closing
Of the door.
The turning of the key.

The ringing somewhere
In my heart, somewhere
Deep in body’s memory,
Continued.
Baby years.
Swaddled in responsibility
All wrung out.

Are you coming out to play?
Insistent, over decades.
Incessant,
It would not go away.
I found the front door firmly bolted,
So scrambled out a broken window
And up a waiting cherry tree.

Quite unbuttoned
Blossom falling
In gay abandon
To stay.