During Recess

Spring sneaked into town while court convened. 
One noon, I walk from my office to my 
old neighborhood and find it well-kept. 
The ditch I’d hurtle galloping home 
from school has been curbed and guttered. 

Jack’s shop is owned and run by Asians now 
who mop, exchanging Vietnamese. I buy candy 
from the uncrowded shelves and return to work 
tracing my old route to junior high, now a shell. 
Behind me, my grade school hollers its recess. 

Listening back, I hear my own voice, my own 
shoes on the hopscotch, swiftly recalling how 
to ignore the bell until the line forms 
then beat the blood in my face to the door 
where I assume that Miss Blunt still waits. 

No one supposes I am walking back to my ugly notes 
on a double murder, a naturalist losing spring 
to unearth a spider web. Extricated, it must gleam 
geometrically, word by word. Sunstreams, continue your
hard green in the surprised leaves; give me, unjustified, 

what killing cost: more sky, more time.