class writing exercise

pediatricians fire a canister of tear gas into a group of preschool children while there’s a jungle gym quietly at play

there are bodies of swings that pump their legs to fly for the apples in the umbrella tree rot on spot the sage grass grows in sparse

baby blue jays in their cribs take a nap for a long while for what’s meant to fix is asphyxiating what’s meant to cure stains

the roots of the bench lay low through the shrubbery like how owl hoots on the trunk silent and undaunting

meanwhile kiddies get back to hopscotch come into the slides and monkey bars where they hang their heads and tear their spleens

it if weren’t for the kingdom which surrounds them they’d never know what became of those squirrels or cherries

above the dark stars there are toothless smiles and tag your its while the family of ants take cover in their sand hill

there is a maple leaf there in a birchwood’s eye that peels at the hands of a mother

bees in their hives are slaves to the business of honey ask them if it’s so sweet they buzz about the bunnies having babies out of their faces

the treatment it never meant to hurt the dirt dries and crumbles in pudgy hands he tastes it but it never tells him the answer

perhaps the tears hit them so long ago but the antelope have just now started to take notice