Playground In Early Fall

Playground In Early Fall

A woman pushes her child
who swings on a leather strap
as wings of sprightly yellow jackets slap

the afternoon. Beguiled
by the scent of bones, charred meat,
a mongrel wanders, scavenging the trash

near grills, as scattered cash
might make you pause. Kids, fleet
as pups, play wolf-cub-rough. Their howls carry

across the length of the park.
They wriggle through tunnels, dark
as a serpent’s gut, and slither down slides as scary

as seeing the teeth of the hound
now nosing around the fence
that shields them from a world far too immense.   

He marks it, scuffs the ground.
He seems sublimely numb
to the squall of squeals and shrieks (as if the noise

that blooms from these boisterous boys
and clamorous girls must come
from beyond the world), while those who are climbing and crawling

are unaware a fog
will make them deaf as the dog
to the whispering leaves of memory, falling, falling.