Recess

Recess

The sun baked through
the denim of my wrap-around skirt 
as I waited my turn
at hopscotch.
The key to my bike chain
was my marker for the game.
It never landed
outside the box. 

Dandelions turned the playground
into a white carpet of puff balls.
We twirled around them like ballerinas
and wished for bubblegum, Barbies,
and breasts,
before we blew their seeds
off to root in someone’s yard. 

We were 4th grade girls;
a summer too old to climb
on monkey bars or swing from rings. 
We talked about boys,
but never to them. 

Sometimes we played jacks
in the corridor. The chill
of shaded concrete seeped through
polyester dresses as we bounced 
past onsies and twosies. 

There were times we’d play
handball against the bathroom wall,
and once, Sandy 
broke Tina's nose
with the tetherball.

After lunch, the scent of hot dirt
stung my nose, while we played volleyball
and whispered about how Sally 
was wearing a bra. 

When the bell rang, we were a line of
gangly arms and legs
in bell bottoms and peasant dresses.

One day, I threw my bike key too hard.
It vanished in a vortex of grass.
Grandpa had to cut the lock off my bike, 
and nothing ever seemed to land
inside the box again. 

___________________________________________________

I decided to send this one because I had this poem posted on a poetry site and a publisher recently contacted me about including it in an anthology about "school days." I've had a handful of poems published before, but I still get excited about it. 

I remember the day I lost that key so clearly. I still don't understand why I couldn't find it. 

We were still very much little girls playing our games. Perhaps we were too eager to grow up. 

My mother got remarried when I was in 4th grade, and life started changing. 

P.S. 

Is that rug the Mickey Sapphire Blue?