"Columbus Day Weekend, 1972" by Paula Reed Nancarrow

The park was cold air —sharp vinegar in the nose. A damp picnic, with family the daughter did not know well. She did not want to be there. She wanted to finish her copy of I’m OK, You’re OK. Maybe she could believe in Transactional Analysis instead of in Catholic Hell. But family events were sacrosanct, and reading was antisocial. Who did she think she was? Relatives and religion: they both gave her ennui. The daughter walked the perimeter of the park, along the pine windbreak, where the swing sets stood. Crows cawed in the bare branches. No crows in the Bible, their parish priest had said: only ravens that God provides for; ravens that will peck out your eyes if you disrespect your parents. Unclean birds. A swing was not a picnic bench. A swing was not a pew. A girl could push herself. The daughter hopped aboard, pumped her legs, rose high, higher. The crows did not chastise her; instead, they cheered her on. Pine cones littered the ground like unexploded ordnance. Jesus died for her sins. His Sacred Heart was getting on her nerves. 

Time swings forward, back:

I watch my fugitive youth

lob pine cones at God.

Paula Reed Nancarrow's work has appeared in Hole in the Head Review, Book of Matches, and The Southern Review, among other journals. She is a past winner of the Sixfold Poetry Prize and has been nominated for Best of the Net and the Pushcart Prize. Find her at paulareednancarrow.com.