by PAULA

When you’re younger
Nothing seems real.
You don’t know what homicide means.
Your friends don’t sneak out or
Encourage you to steal.
Speed is what you’re after at
recess.
PBS Kids doesn’t speak of love affars.
Crack is the parts of the cement
That break your mommy’s back.
And, back then you never wanted that.
When you thought of cheating
It was at the game of Sorry!
Not on the SAT’s
Or on your high-school sweetheart.
You always hear people saying,
“Enjoy your childhood while it lasts.”
But what happens when it’s
Snatched from your grasp in
The blink of an eye
When you come home to find
Your dad passed out, drunk,
On the couch?
Your mom wiping away her tears
And stifling the cries she
Doesn’t want you to hear?

by PAULA

A lot of times
people don’t look at the
children swinging at the park
or if they do, they figure
kids are doing just that;
being kids, swinging at a park.
They stroll by and hear the
squeals of excitement when one kid
jumps off
and lands catlike
and the rest “ooh” and “ahh”
at him in adoration
then they keep walking
nearing their destination in mind.
No one cares why
the kids are there
rather than at home on this
cold October evening
why dusk is creeping in and
the young ones are laughing
like they have all the time in
the world.
What if they have nothing else
to cling to but the
rusted steel links that discolor
their sweaty palms?
Because three blocks away
their mattress and sheet are
the only things in the house
that hug them.
And when their dad snorts
Ritalin
and their mom ran out
two years ago
who wouldn’t want to sleep in
the slide tunnel?

Because no one notices
they’re never there
and you don’t think anything
of seeing them
swinging
every time you go walk by the park.