Damp on pavement.
Droplets in grass.
Reality enameled
with dark quicksilver.

A girl with worn galoshes,
raincoat full of faded flowers,
stomps through the mud,
green rising lush around her,
forest on all sides.

She’s gone out into the world alone.
Every rubbery step rings
like a gunshot in her ears.
Rain fills her eyes.

There is a playground here,
abandoned for years,
or perhaps drawn
out of memories
and set here to lure her.


The paint peels from the slide.
The swings are rusty.
The sandbox is a square of dull mud.

The days of dandelions are long ago.  
The days of laughing friends have ended.

In the sunlight, that sandbox would gleam
with a thousand tiny diamonds.
This whimsical, illusory wealth
would call to her, fill her with
breathless wonder.

Beneath this rain,
the girl she was has drowned.