Scaer Poem | National Review

MAKE BELIEVE

When she was playing in the yard she talked

to someone she imagined by her side:

a soldier or a prince, perhaps, who walked

along with her when she was playing bride.

I stood there, too, but never saw or heard

whoever came between us on the lawn.

One August day he left without a word.

September came; the princess, too, was gone.

But she returned this morning dressed in white,

and I am finally learning to pretend;

for standing right beside her in plain sight

for just a moment I could see her friend:

A prince in full-dress uniform was there,

before my thoughts escaped into the air.

— Stephen Scaer

This poem appears in the August 1 print issue of NR,

Poetry