Playground (1993)
The absence of lighttook the shape of a frail girl-woman
on the seesaw
that lifts her up deliriously into the whirling air
and back down again into the hard-packed dust.
Sometimes
the seesaw allows her to dismount,
and she walks away from the wild ride
of fantasy & mortality.
The rusty decay of the wrought-iron gate
clings to her hand: she knows that it won't scrub off.
Oh Mama don't be mad I tried to wash up before
dinner it didn't work please don't yell this time
there's no more room on my skin for your anger
But she has to close the gate to the playground,
'cause that's what the suncracked signs says
that hardly has a foothold in the earth & stands, barely.
Thin-soled shoes scrape against the fudgy asphalt
and burn, with the tar & her soul branded forever,
it seems, with these memories of shame that haunt
incessantly.
The sun beats in waves of regret upon her back
& controls the thumping of the feeble heart
within the confines of her brittle bones.
Yes, she is alive:
she lets time ooze by
as she sits & waits for the grass to push
through the cracks between stone.
[edited 2010]
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