Thaw

Thaw

The snow is melting now

running wet like blood

from the altar

of the elementary school

darkening the asphalt

of the playground

The children are inside

blinds pulled to keep the sun

at an impotent glow

Each instructor chants

over opened pages

incantations to carry them

through pagan summer

Fear is at work:

that the sun

is too compelling a god

that they will return

having fallen from faith

having bathed in the cool

of the lake

having spent hours

among lilacs and dandelions

or

that they will return

no longer children at all

but changed

an insurgent deluge

Sacrificed to summer

are the fragile geometries

we struck

upon their days

as they headlong fell

into last winter

The bell rings

and they spill through

double steel doors

pouring, sloshing into puddles

out ahead of us all

April in their eyes

and brilliant

upon their faces