After Hours

I cut through the parking lot at ten.

The playground was somewhere I'd never seen.

The swings were moving in the wind.

No children. Just the equipment

casting long shadows across asphalt.

One sandal in the sandbox.

Abandoned. Pink. Small.

Like someone had simply stepped out

of it and never came back.

The structure was just metal then.

Not a place. Just a thing.

The bars were cold. The slide was a ramp

that led nowhere particular.

The sandal was the only proof

that this had been a site of joy.

That children had occupied it.

That it meant something.

Now it was just architecture.

Just angles and rust and the wind

moving the swings slightly.

I didn't touch anything.

Didn't move the sandal.

Just kept walking.

The sandal will still be there tomorrow.

Or it won't.

Someone will pick it up or leave it.

The swings will have stopped moving.

The equipment will be what it always was.

I'm still thinking about the child

who stepped out of that sandal

and walked away into the dark.

Where did they go?

Why didn't they look back?