Retrospective
Sandy Lyne
All Your Life
My tree house fort was a piano crate
nailed by my father between two trees.
The roof of the carport was a pirate ship.
The front yard and back yard were
soldier’s battlefields, gunslinger corrals,
dry riverbeds of the prairie, where shot,
I died across three yards holding on
to seven different trees before
hitting the ground and dying.
In high school I played the part
of Daddy Jim in Shepherd of the Hills.
I get shot, and the director wants me
to dies where I’m shot, but I want to die
all over the stage. The director wins,
of course, but my mother points out,
“This is the part you’ve been preparing for
all your life.”
© The Estate of Sandford Lyne
