Oh the days when I used to go outside!
Scrambling across the rocks of the cliffs
threatening to toss me into the creeks below!
You found things down there
things long lost
the bones of a thousand pets
that the neighbors had chucked over our cliff,
the skulls of Mr. Mittens staring back at me
the death didn't get me
but the low howling of the wind
echoing up from the highway
moaning like a thousand survivors
of something that they should have died for

I was thrown from them only once
and I was trapped for half a day
in an abandoned wine cellar
no one had been in, my dad said,
for at least a hundred years
the mill stones twice my hight
and barrels smashed
ribs of dead behemoths
I was sure I would die there
and some other little girl would find my bones
looks like someone had a monkey for a pet!
and the moaning
it screamed in my ears
until I wanted to join in the chorus

my dad saved me
at half past seven
when the sun was nearly down, his hand plunged through the broken wooden roof
I clung to this grizzled man
like a circus monkey
worst I got were some bug bites
but still I'm wary
of the moans

My baby brother's gone off
on a plane
to way, way down South
He left too early for me to realize
that I
was worried

I've flown alone before
but he;
he's so independent
and that sort of thing can lead to trouble
So now he's off and away
learning how to shoot down jets in Alabama
I hope my air force kid
doesn't get lost