Static Load

The shortcut through the park was a mistake.

The slide is a long, curved tongue of steel,

and the swings hang like heavy gallows

under the orange sodium glow of the street.

One of them is moving in the crosswind,

a dry, rhythmic screech of iron on iron.

It sounds like a hinge that needs a soul,

or a lung that’s forgotten how to breathe.

I walk faster, feeling the damp, gray sand

caking into the deep treads of my work shoes.

It’s the weight of a place meant for joy

that has turned into something you have to survive.