The cartwheels have fallen off.
Her limbs propel her to risk
new maneuvers. A flashback
to somersaulting down a legendary hill.
She spits out dirt, grass, infamous feathers,
the sound of phantom guitars
colliding into a parallel color wheel as it turns over on itself

in a Connecticut spring sky.
A figure lets go of the man’s hand,
races toward the sun-drenched stair.

She always believed the ghost child
was a boy—not this whisper of a girl.
How could she know?