Sciacca1
Krotiak Park
by Tiffany Sciacca

It felt like hours —
having no one to cheer me on,
still my fears, follow at a distance
just reaching

as I hit the trail, smooth asphalt
packed black,
winding between blossoms
passing with
the swiftness of birds.

In the distance, a girl’s voice
wails, a siren — Aeolus, Keeper of the Winds,
up to his tricks again
as I speed by.

I wished my mother had been watching…
as I flew, eyes closed, grinning in the wind
the gnats forming a crown round my head.

PHOTO: The author in 1981 (Park Forest, Illinois).

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This poem is based on a summer’s evening that did not end on a good note, as I later slammed into an old willow tree!

Bio. Pic

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Tiffany Sciacca is a poet, and co-owner of an Italian restaurant in Alton, Illinois. When she’s not dishing out great pasta, she’s reading classic horror anthologies, watching Nordic Noir, or, of course, writing poetry!