I have been held between calloused fingers with
courage caked under the fingernails.

I've watched the tribe of white knuckled girls with the knobby knees
fall off the jungle gym.

Their mothers would sit on the park bench and smoke Virginia Slims.

Must be getting old, the way their skinny fingers combed the better half
of their crinkly silver hair.

They get carried away out there, how they invite themselves into strangers cars, fire up another cig and tell their stories to each other.

And the kids are wild and all footwork, thinned lips the color of roses, questioning whatever confuses them.

I am uncomfortable with their softness, mumbling syllables or whispering fairy tales.
They picked scabs until they bled and their mothers pretended not to notice as they soaked in late night stands and whiskey;
I want to say to the girls on the jungle gym, “you were born to a mother who wore pain like
trees wear their rings, as marks of bravery and battle cries.”

But because I am forever bonded to this earth, I will feed myself with their
feminine giggles carried by the wind

And for now, I will carve myself down to nothing more than water                                                                   and remember that
observation really is a lonely science.