02
Tsubasa

The boy was good:
he’d always go get the groceries!
And when the short shadows in the hot close streets
hid the men at their dominos,
the little boy would kick his ball
all the way to SuperMercado,
round the melons and jamón,
collecting coffee, and Cheetos.

Incommunicado,
he only spoke with his feet,
and with his only friend: the ball.
How he loved its form,
its self-enclosed horizon.
Kicked with the toe into the space above the knee,
he'd eye the ball there, balanced in gravity,
watching it rise, and fall.