the lost boy gambol
If you hear whooping and the banging of drums,
mind yourself and move along.
Do not peer into a clearing and stop to observe
the dance unfold, performed by baby-faced
boys in woodland skins with grins
that stretch too wide, orbiting
a central fire, marmalade flames roiling,
ash dotting the air like second stars.
They appear to be harmless boys in a jig, but blink
and they’re skeletons of men long past. Blink
and they’re pixies, living by belief. Blink and they’re
corporeal shadows, circling the blaze.
Blink again and they return to rosy-cheeked
youths, laughter blithe and raucous.
Turn away before the fox-dressed one catches you
staring, grabbing your hands to pull you in.
Fight against the urge to twirl to the heartbeat
of homemade drums and the whisper
of a playerless fife. Leave the clearing.
Grow up while you can.
Christina Ellison is an MFA candidate at SHSU, a Publishing Fellow at the Texas Review Press, and managing editor of The Measure. Her work appears in Do Geese See God?, Epistemic Lit, The Afterpast Review, and more. She lives in Spring, Texas, with her best friend, air conditioning.
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