The Playground After Hours

The Playground After Hours

The playground closes at dusk
but it opens again at midnight
for children who do not go to the school
that sits behind the fence.

I know because I watched it from my window,
every night from age eight to thirteen.
The swings moving without wind.
The merry-go-round spinning without hands.

The slide was the worst.
Something descended it every night,
not sliding, climbing down headfirst
in a way no human body bends.

I told myself it was animals.
Raccoons, possums, neighborhood cats.
But animals do not sit in rows
on the seesaw, balanced perfectly.

The sandbox filled itself each morning.
No truck delivered the sand,
but every night it was deeper
and the things buried in it were different.

Not toys, not coins, not bottle caps,
but small bones, too small for adults,
arranged in patterns
that matched the constellation charts
we studied in fourth grade science.

The playground after hours
belongs to the children who were here before.
The playground after hours
rehearses the recess of the dead.

My parents moved us when I was thirteen,
but the night before we left
I looked out the window one more time.

Everything stopped.
The merry-go-round, the slide, the seesaw.
And in the silence I could hear
the sound of children breathing.

Not playing, not laughing.
Just breathing
in the dark
from the places
where children should not be.