Elizabeth Lash

A FALL INTO GRACE

This afternoon,
We watched a woman push a small, silent child on a swing.
She seemed sad, pushing him,
ever so gently,
over and over again.

Each time he fell off,
She rearranged him back on his seat.
His head drooped, though, no matter what she did.

It seemed strange that a blond-haired, curvy woman,
dressed in a green silk blouse, and
flowing black pants, and
polka-dotted black flats,
more appropriate for a work day than a
playground,
was pushing such a quiet child repeatedly on a swing.

We heard about it in the news later,
answering our question as to what we saw,
but never as to why.

All we know is what we saw that afternoon:
a sad, blond-haired woman
dressed for work—
pushing her dead child
on a swing.


Elizabeth reads "A Fall to Grace":



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Elizabeth confesses: "I've spent many a warm summer evening sitting on a swing set (even as an adult!), and so I was interested in this weird little news story about a woman found pushing her dead son on a swing. Without many details about what had happened, I was left to ponder - how did she end up there? And why?"

ELIZABETH LASH is a NYC-based attorney who has written on a variety of subjects—from art law and ex-KGB agents to women engineers and corruption in Azerbaijan. Her poetry has appeared twice before at The Five-Two, and her non-fiction articles have been published by the Center for Art Law, the Holy Cross Journal of Law and Public Policy, Transparency International, the Engineering News-Record, and GetCrafty.com, among others.