The Work of Keeping Small Children Off Rooftops

30 Girard

My mother was 28 and afraid
of heights when my father left

leaning on the house the ladder
Bobby and Richy climbed

to view the boats floating
on the Great South Bay.

This was just the beginning
of children leading one

or another to a greater vantage
from the two-story colonial

by the swamp and woods
designated forever wild,

of deciding which one
would be caught if two fell,

of lollipops proffered like bait
luring small children

with wide eyes and sweet tooths
back to terra firma.