Lorelei Kay

ELLIE LAND

 

In my daughter’s kitchen,

we view dire culmination

of family reunion feast.

 

 Dishes waiting to be washed

 sink waiting to be scrubbed

 floors waiting to be swept.

 

A honey-hued mass of curls

bounces by, hazel eyes gaze up,

as a small hand reaches out,

 

“Grandma,

come play

hide-and-seek

 

I place her three-year-old hands

in my sixty-plus-year-old hands,

and chase off to play her tender game

 

leaving her mother

to the drudgery of the colossal

kitchen clatter.

 

I cover

my eyes,

count,

 

“Onetwothreefourfive,

sixseveneightnineten.

Here I come to find Ellie.”

 

Then it’s my turn to hide

in the Never Never Land

of childhood

 

and escape

the Ever Ever Land

lying ahead of me.

 

If only I could stay hidden here,

safe, and forever young,

in Ellie Land.