This is My Happy Poem

by Kimberly Phinney

Our three flashlights in hand

all go out

when we arrive

for our “small adventure,”

as she calls it.

We need nothing but

the rock-salt moon

in full glow,

peppered by the clouds

in our midnight home.

Upside down perspectives

make us free and young

(again).

We pump our legs,

and our high-pitched shrieks

echo in a chorus of sound and stars

against our quiet town.

He pushes her.

Her fair ponytail bobs

against the black drapes of sky.

I am quiet

(and smile to myself)

as I move through the air.

We are swinging in the dark.

And I am alive.

Kimberly Phinney is a national award-winning AP English instructor and professional photographer. She’s been published in Christianity Today’s Ekstasis Magazine, Ruminate, The Dewdrop, Amethyst Review, Calla Press, Heart of Flesh, Agape Review, The Clayjar Review, Sunday Mornings at the River, and The Write Launch, among others. She has her M.Ed. in English and studied at Goddard’s MFA program in Creative Writing. She is founder and editor of this fine literary journal and platform, The Way Back to Ourselves, and a poetry editor with Agape Review. After almost dying from severe illness in 2021, she’s earning her doctorate in counseling to help the marginalized and suffering.