Chalk and doves

I created worlds out of white chalk and the dark shadows of summer’s time. 

Steering bike handles over pavement, sun on my shoulders, hair wet with chlorine and sweat.

Circling round the trees and mourning doves high in the branches, suitcases full of crumbling letters in shrubs, rusty tin boxes holding the treasures of an eight year old. 

Jaguar skateboard, flips and falls, the bump of the driveway terror to my wrists. 

Slender leaves of eucalyptus tearing delicately under wheel, under flip flops then casually tossed aside before jumping back into the pool. 

The days long and languid, Goonies in the afternoon, air conditioned and stale indoors, 4pm light strips through dusty blinds, dusky minds. 

Wrapped in towels and nostalgia, pouring forward into the time of scents and scenes. 

What is different now? 

How has time accelerated into this flow of words and not actions? 

I want the pool and chalk lines constructing a world of solid and fluid, swim and stand, tag not it. 

The light changes, my skin reddens, my eyes close again and again, season after season. 

This is the how and the why, the circle and the shadow. 

The now and the past kicking past, Marco Polo, tag, we’re all it. 

Summer

is
time.