Edges

Stunned by the smell of cut grass
I stop.
Watch the mower whirring, whirring,
Leaving long, skinny, windrows,
Of green.

Suddenly, it's every summer of my life.
Again
I'm nine.
Jan and I sit on the hot curb.
Suck grape Popsicles,
Tongue the drips
From our dusty arms.

Later we beg for a sleepover
In our screen porch.
We roll out sleeping bags,
Fat green armyworms
Dropped from trees.

After dark we sneak out
In seersucker pj's.
Flitting into backyards and gardens,
Clumsy ballerinas.

We crunch gritty carrots.
Fence with stalks of pink rhubarb.
Slap arms and legs,
Stinging wet whips.

We dash the warm sidewalk
To the last block in town.
A vacant lot, waiting for
Wet cement, fragrant wood, ringing hammers.

We perch on the fresh-dirt-basement-hole,
Dangle feet over the edge.
Our fingers grip the dirt clods,
As a huge black and white sky wheels above.
We're terribly, terribly small,
But not afraid.