Freedom

For my mother

When she went to school back East in her first black dress, a pearl necklace,

she waved her gloved hand as the train pulled away,

made a weekly accounting to her father

for the movie, handkerchief, a pencil,

then waited tables in secret. Week after week,

she spent her dimes on lessons,

spinning, rolling, dropping at a dizzying speed toward the ground,

pulling up at the last moment,

stalling, starting, soaring toward the blue ever-widening sky,

flying, at last, flying.

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JULIA PARK TRACEY was a Poet Laureate of Alameda, CA, from 2014-2017; her work has appeared in Disney/ Babble, Huffington Post, Woman’s Day, and others.