Three Poems By Mary Kipps

The Babysitter
  
What sugarplum dreams might I give you tonight?
Can I send you to Nod on the gray gander’s wings,
from a garden of verse wish you haylofts and swings?
All we need is the glow of this bed-table light
to saddle that fly-away horse, tiny friends,
for a journey beyond where the sidewalk ends,
where faraway starts, where the wild things run,
and witches in chicken-leg houses make pie
out of children like you, and monkeys can fly.
What is it, my darlings? I’ve barely begun. 
Yet, on your small faces, I clearly see fright.
Let’s pull up the covers so none of you shows,
not a hair on your head, no fingers or toes.
I’ll do better next time. I promise. Sleep tight. 

The Wind through the Corn
  
To the crackling clap of the wind through the corn,
the birds swoop and soar on a secret trapeze,
chasing red from the sky on this crisp autumn morn.
  
In the forest, unhindered by thicket or thorn,
he advances, enticed by the festive reprise
of the castanet clack of the wind through the corn.
  
With a snort and a stamp, two shakes of young horn, 
and such sauce in his stride, he steps from the trees,
crunching red under hoof on this crisp autumn morn.
  
Of a sudden, he halts as his senses forewarn
of a presence, ill-placed, and he breaks from his freeze
at this ominous shift of the wind through the corn.
  
But his leap is too late. The shot, marksman-borne,
takes the prince in mid-bound, and he falls to his knees,
spilling red in the field on this cold autumn morn,
  
leaving only a hart from which grace has been torn.
Now the black buzzards glide on the back of the breeze
to the death-rattle moan of the wind through the corn,
tasting red on the breath of this cold autumn morn. 

The Girl in the Song
  
I confess, I was his from that very first line,
just another young girl in her struggle to cope
with the rhyme and the rhythm of being sixteen.
Though he sang from experience yet to be mine,
I imagined our story in stereoscope
with hot August nights, and the way it would be,
reaching out, touching hands, if you know what I mean.
I indulged in this hope till my summers’ decline,
when I finally slid from that glass mountain slope
to the beautiful noise of a shore in between. 
Still, in rare times of doubt, if I set myself free
from the stones in my head, from my soul’s self-esteem,
I confess, I long yet for that girl to be me,
the sweet Caroline of a pop poet’s dream. 

Mary Kipps writes poetry for all age groups, in traditional forms as well as in free verse. A former Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has appeared regularly in poetry journals and anthologies across the U.S. and abroad since 2005. She is also the author of three humorous paranormal Kindle books: All in Vein, A Sucker for Heels, and Bitten: A Practical Guide to Dating a Vampire.