GAMES OF HOPSCOTCH

In the days of innocence and Eisenhower,
most girls would play their games of hopscotch.
Jay-walking to a vacant lot across the street,
we’d kick away debris and bits of broken glass,
              
              scratch out our game-boards
              on rough cement with pieces
              of chalk snitched from school.

Like kangaroos, we’d hop, hop, hop, jump, hop
turn around, till sweat dripped down our rosy cheeks,
and our lips craved ice-cold cherry Cokes, grape
popsicles from Sweeny’s drugstore down the block.
              
               We’d skip off laughing, hand
               in hand, stepping over wide
               cracks, sparing our mothers’ backs.

               Just yesterday, I read the news:
               DOPE DEALERS BUSTED
               on my old street corner.  Bullets
               popped, brains and blood
               littered the black-top war zone.

               Now, trails of paint, white as lines
               of pure *******, mark the place
               dead bodies fell...down, down, down,
               all meandering toward the spot
               we girls once played our games
               of hopscotch...high on life.