SWING SETS
Lesvos, Greece, 2016

When my sister was six
and I was eight
she took apart the swing set
on Christmas day
with the wrenches from the tool box
we got for a present
a memory that sidles up to me
as Syrian children
I am walking with
up a mountain pass
run to a swing set in the front
of a resort hotel
insisting on the slide
the swings
as temporarily theirs
until the manager comes out
shooing them away
their parents apologizing
my wishing for my sister’s tool box
so we can double back
in the middle of the night