THE TIRE SWING

[Published in the Loch Raven Review, Fall 2012]


THE TIRE SWING


The tire swing hangs straight,
rope unbent by play,
time unmarked
by a daydreamer’s lazy pendulum;
grass grown into the bare patch
where feet once scraped
and pushed off for speed.

The children are gone,
to other trailer parks,
acres of double-wides in the sun
clean, suburbanized, orderly,
and out of the way;
to cramped apartments
stacked atop one another;
or to motels along Route 1
where they play among the tires
of parked cars and diesel trucks,
feet scraping across an asphalt lot.

Among the trees and the weeds,
all that remains:
an old washer,
toys that fell from a box—
forgotten and unnoticed—
empty concrete pads
where trailers stood,
cinder blocks holding up only air.

When the tree is cut down
to make way for a four bedroom home
and a manicured lawn
with its ornamental tree,
the tire will swing again,
for just a moment,
before plunging to ground.