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 cocaine, 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.