Brother—
Do you remember when we were two on the teeter totter
Lolly and Billy
One on each side.
I sat closer in, you sat further out
To balance our weights (science lesson in action)
Rocky Arbor family picnic
Aunt Irene’s potato salad Aunt Stella’s baked beans
Cousins rolling in the sand
Then jumping into the river?
We squealed like merry monsters
Somersaulting,
Grandpa’s chuckling eyes blessing us;
We turned our fingers into pixies
Wearing catalpa flower caps,
Then galloped our invisible horses,
Neighing for nothing,
Tossing our manes.
Brother, can you name
What was happening
Within the charged space around Uncle Eddie’s knee-slapper punch-lines,
How we floated like so much jargon that afternoon
Between the teeter and the totter . . .

Darlene Wesenberg Rzezotarski is a retired MPS teacher participating in Woodland Pattern Wednesday Writers. She has published Trick a Witch Wed a Hedgehog Save your Soul: An American Artist Encounters Poland and Memorable Milwaukee: Legendary Tales Depicted in Clay. She is enjoying the monthly publication of her novel Tannenbaum Arms in Riverwest Currents. It's loosely based on experiences attending UWM in 1969-1970 while managing an apartment building housing a variety of tenants whose life stories intermingle.