Swingset by Genelle Chaconas

A swing brushes the cement low, in slow motion, as if drawn through night’s deep syrup, as if burdened, holding the dark ball of a child hidden in the twilight’s smeary sleight of hand. They must be there: it’s some trick of the bare winter branches and sallow moonlight. Their shivering laughter rattles like dead leaves across the blacktop, rubber-soled high tops slapping concrete.

Genelle Chaconas is nonbinary gendered, queer, an abuse survivor, has mood disorders, and feels proud. They earned a BA in Creative Writing from CSUS in 2009, an MFA in Writing & Poetics from Naropa University in 2015, and 50k of debt. They never learned to “photograph” but take photos. They’ve been published lots but don’t namedrop. Their chapbooks include Fallout, Saints and Dirty Pictures (little m press, 2011) and Yet Wave (the Lune, 2017). They serve as head editor for HockSpitSlurp Literary Magazine. They enjoy scifi and gangster flix, drone/noise/industrial music, and long walks off short piers.