Games At Dusk

Street lights Have only just gone on

The mothers' hands

Grope red and soapy among the dishes

Screen doors slam

And we spin across green lawns

Freeze into statues,

Mother, may I? red light, green light

Race down sidewalks,

Break her back

Kick the can and scatter

Into ragweed and briar patches

Crouch in the secrets of our hiding places

Sticky with pollen, gravel-kneed

Snatch at lightning bugs

To make our way, lantern-fisted,

Home through the dark