Clear

Hundreds of bent nails stick out
jaggedly from the cracked wood
of old telephone poles like ancient
fighters shot full of arrows.
She stares sadly at the old dish
sponge in the sink and remembers
the face of the street juggler she
saw when she was lost on the sidewalks
of Baltimore. You try to get her to
focus on anything else; like the hot
air balloons you see ascending miles
away, out the window above the fireplace,
but nothing beats the immersion of memory.
Colorful chalk becomes dust under the weight
of a truck, and the imaginary world the children
spent all day drawing is covered by the returning
silhouettes of their parents used cars.
On summer nights they run from each other
under the stars, and watch the heat lightning
make the sky blue again for seconds at a time.
Only ever giving in to the demands of their actual selves
who remained with them speaking effortlessly clear.