We knew from the start
that the game wasn’t fair,
yet we played anyway,
pretending that childhood
would always be there,
just a bike ride away.

But where is it now?
It’s over,
over the fields of clover,
beyond the white cloud,
atop the green hill…
It is there still.

It lives in that place—
non-existent, abiding—
where it’s always July,
where cross the lush summers
two bikers are riding,
just two kids: you and I.

© 2014 Sasha A. Palmer

Image: © 2017 Nino Chakvetadze, reproduced with permission.

Happy July, kids, and happy 4th, America!