Pinky Promise
after Maggie Smith
Any day now, they’ll reach the border
of my hands, peer at a terrain that would break
the most seasoned travelers. Given another
way, no sane mother would surrender
her children to the world’s atrocities, just like
no sane mother would unlock the gate
and let go, knowing the path is ticking
with landmines. Wandering off,
they’ll come across bodies no bigger
than their own, wrapped in sheets
of thoughts and prayers. Predators on the prowl,
crouched behind candied smiles, waiting
for the earth to blink. Where, my children will ask,
are the pretty ponies grazing in golden pastures?
The faery clans arrayed in petals and sparkle,
where? You pinky promised. It’s true.
I’ve slinked into pawn shops on every corner
of time, bartered away the lucky trinkets,
the dreamcatchers hung over their windows
like suns rising in another galaxy, but when
I looked over my shoulder, as they’re doing now,
all I saw was a cemetery swarming
with blood and bones, a million unclasped hands.
*
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. Her “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for her poem “Cumbre Vieja,” was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize, and was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite´s 2021 Microchap Series. Her recent work appears in ONE ART, Sky Island Journal, and Last Syllable, among others. Originally from California, she lives in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/
