My childhood secrets
imagining.

Read Nancy Drew
fancied myself
a budding detective.
Prowled the neighborhood
looking for crimes
and clues.

After the movie
Boy Who Cried Wolf
stalked for seeing a crime
imagned someone
following me
for seeing something suspicious.

Read Secret Garden
determined to find one too.
TV Lassie saves a neighbor
believed our collie
a future hero.

Created my back yard secret space.
Believed like Dicken
that critters would come.
Then a turn into teen.
A change in my fantasies.
Elvis and boys.

-Sue Neufarth Howard