Swinging

Me and Caroline start out swinging,
side-by-side, holding hands
and pumping it up until we’re
floating so close to the clouds
we could touch the dew.
We count together, pulling chains
with all our might: fifty-two
pump, fifty-three pump, on and on,
until we reach a hundred or maybe
even a thousand for no good reason
at all other than to tell Bubba and Sammy
there’s one more thing we can do
that they can’t. When we get so high
two legs of the swing set jump
off the ground, Mama comes out
and says if we don’t slow down,
the devil’s going to reach up
and snatch our rowdy souls.