Fierce Girl Playing Hopscotch

You sway like a crane to the tunes of tossed stones.

I am what you made to live in

from what you had: hair matted as kelp, bad schools.

Oh, you will never know me. I wave and you go

on playing in the clouds

boys clap from erasers. I am the pebble

you tossed on the chalked space and war-

danced toward, one-leg two-leg, arms treading air.

In this, your future, waves rechristen the sea

after its tiny jeweled lives

that hiss “Us Us” to the shore all day.

Where’s the kid called Kateydid? the moonfaced

Kewpiedoll? The excitable pouting

Zookie? The somber O-Be-Joyful?

Lost girl, playing hopscotch, I will do what you could.

Name of father, son, ghost. Cross my heart and hope.

While the sea’s jewels build shells and shells

change to chalk and chalk to loam and gold

wheat grows where oceans teetered.