Washout

The rain is an indifferent eraser.

It hits the sidewalk and turns the yellow

into a cloudy soup of lemon and grit.

The hopscotch grid is losing its spine,

the numbers bleeding into the cracks

where the weeds are drinking the dust.

There was a body here—short and wide,

traced in blue by a friend’s shaking hand.

Now the torso is gone, and a single palm

is smeared into a long, ghostly streak,

reaching for the dark of the storm drain

while the concrete turns back to black.