The Brooklyn Rail

The Hanging Girls

 

They are tough little angels led into their own light, climbing through the sky
We yearn to make them mythological not having language to place them
We want to own them, possess them, but we can’t see their faces as they forever climb
Buoyed in their own worlds protected by their ignorance of us and our observations.

Remember when we would run suddenly if someone called our name
Or said it was dinnertime
There was dirty water in a small hole where the frogs lived
The bikes parked in a colorful row with streamers blowing from handlebars
Caked mud on the bottom of sneakers, and jars held floating tadpoles
All that was needed was a mission and freedom from adults who enforced rules
Perhaps we could just run away.

Look at their shadows, they are sisters to the other halves, existing apart
Yet separate are their lives
The girls pose only for themselves
Light glowing on their limbs, sun catching fire
Her hair windswept in one black wave
Unaware that we might marvel that we might be envious
We are afraid of their power
Their involvement with themselves
We watch their bodies in an attempt to interpret where their minds are—
Who is fearful, who feels pride, who is the next great beauty—
But we are on the outside left with our overly sophisticated senses.

Artemis clasped the tip of the reindeer’s hoof
Her other hand on the arrow
Don’t you dare look at her or her dogs will eat your face
She trampled the forest hunting with a yellow gleam in her eyes
And though she killed she also loved the animals as she loved the marsh,
The mountains, the woods
Hunting is instinctual, you either hunt or are hunted
They hope to grab the jump rope, see it fly wide above their head and feel their feet pass
Over its trail
Or the ball shooting from one small hand to another if you steal it, you win
One hides and the other wildly runs to one corner and to the next—where are you?

We should all put on dirty t-shirts and tackle each other in the dewy grass
It’s okay if we get a bloody nose or skin our knees that’s part of the fun
Our bodies communicating as we slam our skin or skid a few feet
Words far more abusive, permanent, where only this will be felt in tomorrow’s bruise.

Motionless but in motion the girls continue their suspension
They don’t even care to watch our play as their dresses umbrella in the wind
They are perpetually in flight their heads flung backward in what we
Might define as ecstatic
Their expressions unrevealed though their bodies on full display
One shooting dangerously close to the ground, one swimming as if at sea
Hands appear trying to brace there kineticism but to no avail
They are little boats, clouds of energy, recognizable only to each other.