Childhood's Corridor

Childhood is long and narrow like  

a corridor made of memories, dreams,  

imagination's flimsy scaffolding built  

on hopes that sometimes become  

marble statues but often just stand,

clouds drifting through an endless sky  

of recesses and scraped knees, stumbling,  

fists clenched in pockets, trepidation  

like lunchtime uneaten in a paper bag,  

the playground with its wooden dragons  

of cliques, the ladder impossible  

to climb, as if it's a coffin you can’t  

get out of on your own, no key  

in your tiny hands, yet the sunlight  

through the windows says, someday,  

you will carve wings out of this wood,  

one foot after the other, bruised but  

steadfast, until you finally fly away.