Day of the Heart

Issue 15 | Winter 2025 | Roy Bentley

 

Stomp Rocket is an open-air kid’s activity.
Tots with boogie names like Phoenix and
Sky and My Colorado jump up and down,
landing on the piss-yellow bladder thingy.
This makes a plastic rocket shoot upward.

You send the little suckers pretty high up.
Thus, the name Stomp Rocket. A present
for the birthday of my grandson Rowan—
I’m with my kids and grandkids in a No
Kings t-shirt. It’s scorching for July-Ohio.

Little Matt, my grandson, says something
before leaping up and stepping down hard
(as in, really hard) and the rocket launches.
Into the trees at the rear of the fenced yard.
Next, it lies blazingly white—the rocket—

in grasses by a pair of pet graves. There’s
a red arrow across the crown on the t-shirt.
Which Little Matt aims for, angel that he is.
Which helps our family let go one ballbuster
of a laugh, though we’re doomed. All of us.