It hurts 

to watch the girl in the blue jacket 

push the playground’s swing

alone. From the hill, she is an ant 

in a colony–writhing pebbles

beneath her feet scrape away hope

and puncture her throat. In the warm haze 

the sun’s sultry light 

is reflected like a desilvered mirror. But the glow

from her jacket is not enough

to attract her classmates.

I can see her hair 

weaved like shoelaces, crocheted 

carefully by a single mother. But everyone else

has curled hair. When the bell

rings, footfalls echo like memories down

a tunnel. 

The world will become a stranger. The pattern 

of friends and family will be nothing

but a dream, a door she never opens. I see the playground 

deserted like a junkyard, torn scraps from candy wrappers and 

scribbled drawings. Then to the left, tied to the chains of the swing 

is the silhouette of a jacket folded over and over and over.