The best time

The best time to visit your old playground

is at night.
The moonlight glances
upon legs like skinned knees,
the sand clinging to them
when you kneel,
little pebbles leaving
dents in your skin
as if the memory of
schoolyard laughter were
trying to burrow underneath.
The chains on the swings rasp
eerie lullabies in the breeze, and
you can almost see the
little girl you once were
perched there,
kicking her legs,
ghostlike.          

The trees are alive and
you are sleeping.
By the beech tree there
you made moss beds for
fairies and
tasted earth on your fingers,
traced the shape of your
grandmother’s face in the soil
when she passed,
tore the legs from
that spider once as a dare
and waited ‘til the other kids left to
whisper a quick prayer,
give it a hasty burial
beneath the jungle gym,
and blow it kisses you
would never waste on a boy
back then.
Even now you are
still sorry.

I think he’s still waiting for you
by the blacktop,
the boy with the curls you
used to twist and pull.
Walk over now and
lace fingers,
press kisses on his collarbone,
speed off in his
gray Honda
and wipe the cuts
from your knees and
tell him how happy you are
to leave this godforsaken town.

Do not mention how much
you miss it.