The Price of Empire
I saw three kids the other day
two girls and a boy
crouched in conspiracy
exchange the soft touch of liquid crystal screens
for the rough bliss of trucked-in sand
masking the concrete beneath.
The same Atlantic-blue in six eyes,
seal black locks of hair, not strands,
entangled all three
betraying their shared family.
Scanning the crowd
for more evidence of this multiplicity
among parents hovering
and children dangling
from the brightly-colored limbs
of a municipalacious jungle gym
I saw none.
Only tribes of one
sometimes two even
as forced companions fell apart
these three, the anomaly
outlasted the others at play.
Abandonment came late.
Departing only when
a disembodied voice
called them home
beyond the park's edge.
October 30
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Author's Note
Written today. Do not know what possessed me.
I like the opening commentary on childhood today--that abandoning LCDs to play in the sand is subversive--and the reminders throughout that these children, alone in a park playing together in the dirt are "the anomaly."
Thanks for commenting Frankie. Yes, it was an observation of today's childhood experience, as well as the economics of childbearing. It seems rarer to see families with 3 or more children due to economic forces.