Spring Riders

Indifference is a playground waiting

for kids to emerge, but no one coming.

Kids jumping, laughing, dancing

like the children a few blocks down,

somehow still isolated, alone.

Swing screws creek when the wind rustles—the only sound.

Slides, swing riders, seesaws with no one,

Like a funhouse at a birthday party, now empty,

still isolated, alone.

An abundance of equipment to be used, but now

it was just an old playground echoing in the distance.

Kids didn’t hang on the monkeybars, climb the

rockwall, or sit in the sand pit.

Not anymore.