To mark the base lines
On playground concrete

Plain white school room
Geometry chalk
To show the batter's box

When the rains came
To wash our play away
We were left with the sound
Of rain on a tin roof

Some drums lead
Men into battle
Other quieter musics
Stitch the dream
To the world of stone

This poem was nominated by Cha for the Pushcart Prize 2012.

Old people with wrinkles
Love to lean

Over a baby carriage
Imitating
The vowels of sour milk

They want to be shadows
And flow
Completely
Into the infant

They would leave
Their lives behind them
If they could find a way
To die quietly

Without having been born