Echoes of Rusty Children

When the war comes, I do not hear it. There are no planes overhead; It is civil, I am later told. I run through dry grass with other yard children, past creaking play structures, storm-gray walls, and an empty gas silo rusting in the arid field. I fall, clutching my chest, my hand cupping a bee sting.

            When the man in the car calls to me, I do not come. I do not like bubble gum. I swing the jump rope in a steady rhythm as acacia petals snow down around me until he leaves, until my turn comes to jump to the beat of clapping children.

            When we are stopped by the crowd marching before us, I do not fear. My mother’s hand tightens around mine, but I do not yet know the difference between mob and parade.

            When the washing machine barricades our door from the inside, I do not protest. I scramble atop and relish my new perch, a pirate peering from the crow’s nest.

            When screams pierce our night, I do not wake. The ambulances are out of gas, but I am dreaming in chartreuse and daffodil.

            When we go, I do not cry. I am on my own golden adventure on the platform, peeking out from behind trunks and luggage and the legs of tearful aunts.

            But as the train pulls away, the steady rhythm of falling petals, the chartreuse of creaking walls, and the echoes of rusty children growing dimmer in my mind, I am thinking only of my plush yellow horse, alone in the empty rooms we left behind.