Nighttime in Central Park

Nighttime in Central Park

You – close your weary eyes
And let the world fly by.
Light a cigarette,
Embers burning bright
In the dish at your feet.
You dust the sand from off your shoes
Where it’s sticking in the cracks.
Pump your legs and push yourself higher,
The swing’s chains creaking
In the early evening dark.
The park is empty now,
The screams of children but an echo in the gray-green mist,
The playground a cold, clinical structure
Towering over you as you swing slowly.
The cigarette drops from your ash stained fingers,
Smoldering under your sneaker heel
As you grind it in the dust.
Mascara runs down your cheeks,
Making ghostly spider-smears
And adding to your gray pallor.
The swing squeaks as the girl jumps,
Landing feet first in a puddle of wet sloppy sand
That sucks at her feet like Amazonian quicksand.
The swing clanks slowly in the growing dark,
As the girl dusts herself off and walks home.