Neighbor Girl
by Kate Michaelson
Meet me at the corner, between the tall hedge and the pasture where the fuzz-tipped grasses ripple like a sea. My bike sparkly red, yours powder blue, tires popping tar like gum bubbles. I got my jelly shoes, jelly bracelets, pastel plastic bright as gold. Pedal past Joe and Wilkie’s place, their algae pond, past where we saw the snake. Hard past Burt and Clary’s where the hound dogs strain and bay. The unh unh unh that rattles bones over tracks that mark halfway. Past the factories’ loud blasts of heat and noise. Give it all we’ve got, standing for the hill. Hit the crest and down—just a streak of color past the house where box springs rust. Past ditches overgrown with phlox and chicory—their names a spell to us—through air spun thick as snow with cottonseed. Then slow, jump off with me, and sink your bike into the pillowed green. We’ll disappear into the sweet-dark berry patch, hosts of tiger lilies nodding, drowsy-hot these days as full as lives.
Kate Michaelson is a writer and educator living in Toledo, Ohio. Her poetry and prose have appeared in publications such as Free Verse, The Laurel Review, and River Teeth (Beautiful Things series). Her debut novel, Hidden Rooms, will be published in Spring 2024. You can connect with Kate and find more of her writing at www.katemichaelson.com.
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What surprising, fascinating stuff can you tell us about the origin, drafting, and/or final version of “Neighbor Girl”? I wrote Neighbor Girl on a summer day when I was feeling nostalgic for adventures with one of my childhood friends. She and I lived in the country, where it seemed like we were the only girls anywhere near the same age for miles. One summer break, our moms agreed that we could meet at the corner on our bikes and ride around together from there. I remember thinking that this was major–that I was really grown up now, which was funny because I was probably nine at the most. But I felt this new sense of freedom that, for the first time, I could explore the world on my own, and that my friend and I could go anywhere our bikes could take us
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