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"Sometimes I have these moments"
by Tammy F. Trendle

on a Sunday afternoon
watching my son play
in the park. A sidewalk curves
around a row of sleeping shops
made of crumbling brick.
I see myself

in the window of a quilt-making store.
Piles of quilts stacked in the corner,
unlit candles wrapped in cellophane.
My son giggles as he jumps
up and down the concrete steps.
I hesitate to tell him to be
careful. He is a boy, after all,
and there is nothing I can do

to stop him from falling
one day. The leaves
are restless at his feet.
The air is becoming colder
but not enough to make me
want to wear a jacket. Instead,
the chill from the breeze
awakens my skin, and for a moment
I swear I can feel the entire
history of the world, all of its beauty,
inside me.

Tammy F. Trendle resides in Atlanta, Georgia, and works as a litigation paralegal. Tammy enjoys running, yoga, Romero zombie films and has difficulty screwing lids back onto things (especially the cap on her car's gas tank and the jar of pretzels in the office break room). Her first chapbook, Interchangeable Goddesses, with fellow poet Pris Campbell, is now available from Rose of Sharon/3 Virgins Press at www.myspace.com/roseofsharonpress. She also has a blog at http://herkindofblog.blogspot.com.