………………………………………….After Fragonard’s Les Hasards heureux d’escarpolette

Fragonard’s lady sways among the clouds.
while gentlemen pull at cords to help her float.
An accidental shoe tumbles from stockinged foot.
Ruffled and peachy skirts, pastel cushions
bespeak her wealth and youth, her future set
secure as the golden ropes she grasps and holds,
her face as pale and smooth as a fragile egg.

My brother hung our swing to catch a breeze
to stop my mother’s racing heart for rest
from housework’s plodding measured due.
We’d sit and wait for beat to gentle down.
I’d snuggle up in bliss and naive trust
that chains would never break apart,
that love-warm core would never cease.

My brother hitched my plank board swing to limb.
My hard-baked feet could shove the ground.
I’d push the earth and sail to bird’s nest height,
till bluebirds flew and sang of azure love
as if I’d changed my ordinary self
to misty sky and wing and bluebird song.
beyond the realm of princesses and ropes.

Joyce Compton Brown’s roots are from families who settled in agrarian western North Carolina. She earned degrees from Appalachian State University and the University of Southern Mississippi, with further study at Berea College and Hindman Institute. She taught English and has published prose and poetry in numerous journals. She is the author of several volumes of poetry; her most recent collection is Flowers of the Heavens, published by Madville in 2025.