Hobble Creek Review
Hobble Creek Review
Amy J. Kitchell-Leighty
1986

The four of us went, one block
from our house to a parking
lot flooded three-feet deep.  The lot,
squared off like a jaw, surrounded

by hollowed buildings, swallowed
the rain that day and made us
a pool.  Back when summer meant
suntans with lines, ten speed bikes,

a jam box carried on someone's
shoulder.  And while the park pool
remained closed, we swam in a container
of liquid.  We swam because we believed

in curfews, home-runs, and
su-su-sussudio. We swam because
we trusted.  The rain  
fell upon our skin, fell on streets,

sidewalks, the cemetery, the roofs
of kids locked inside, still tractors,
and cornfields.  We assumed God
had given us this and we dipped our heads

in the murky water unaware that someday
one of us would lose a battle
to cancer and one of us
would load a gun in Iraq.
Amy J. Kitchell-Leighty's poetry has recently been accepted and/or
published in Bellevue Literary Review, Rockhurst Review, White Pelican
Review, and The Coachella Review.  She holds an MFA from Bennington
College ’s Writing Seminars and teaches in the English department at
Vincennes University in Southern Indiana .