It was said
that I’d received
an education here.

Survival seemed
the only curriculum
as far as
my young boy’s brain
could tell.

Ellison’s red bricks,
yellow/green floors were my own hellscape,
no escaping the addition,
or multiplication
of small angry fists
into soft stomach,
chubby cheek.

The respite of recess,
I recall the lowing
of unseen cows,
the smell of manure
on a breeze,
wafting past the swingset.

Milk cartons,
emptied,
filled again
with earth and seed,
milkweed.  

Butterflies,
adult lies.
blackened eyes.

Grasshoppers humming,
buzzing,  
the plink and plop
of  
gravel-rocks
tossed one at a time
into the storm drain.

This bench wasn't here
40 years ago,
yet the ghosts of my childhood
find my lap nonetheless.

As my own children
now swing, climb or
otherwise enjoy the equipment,
I remain haunted by memories
of people lost to me
for what feels like centuries.  

They unload their baggage
(and my own)
at my feet.

Was I ever a child,
A schoolboy,
Really?

Bessie tells me
it was so.

I suppose it’s time
I believed her.

*
-JBClaywell
©P&ZPublications 2019