Playtime Perimeter

those malevolent mittens of botched blood--

reaching out from the pungent dusk that

paints its locket of twilight.

neck-deep in childhood...detached from a

mazy network of breath.

bridging the gap of far gone--with the intermittent

dress-up of a ghost.

stealing into an abandoned rusty tool shed, peeled

from the scalp of a backyard.

filling it with baby jars of soil--damp with boyhood

touches made dark.

now cursing with the tongues of worms.

embalming the stillness of a premature leaving--

an act too solitary to be re-committed.

grass shaken from dust, a windup box, a perimeter

of playtime.

now punished by that punctual occurrence--with a

daily limitlessness.