i.
Every Thursday afternoon
I watch you play the playground.
You climb the bars and
twist the swings
singing pop songs with
mostly your own words.
ii.
Last Thursday, I brought
a box of sidewalk chalk
and we bent our necks making
a blue and orange mandala.
You had never known
that these were called mandalas
nor that you made them with
colors not meant to last.
iii.
Then we left, and I left them
the mandala, the chalk
remembering them later as
I tucked you into bed.
I knew you wouldn’t miss them so
I tried not to miss them either.
iv.
Today is Thursday.
It is the afternoon.
You and I are
playing the playground.
We lift each other
like monkeys in trees
below us, a menagerie
of chalk drawings.
Virginia Valenzuela 