Under the tree I used to climb:

A slab of rock

Grey-blue

Bathed in shade

     I wanted it to be my new house, you see

For the game my cousins and I used to play:

We'd buy islands of outcrop around the yard

With Monopoly money

Then furnish our rock homes

With beach chairs, old rugs,

Pieces of wood (deluxe gas stoves)...

...Oh, that day

When they'd travel back to their home across the ocean,

And the shine of summer would blow out like a candle...

Sometimes, afterwards, I'd go roaming

Around our imagined town,

Breathing in the remnant smoky wisps

Of our shared vision, thinking

Next summer

Next summer I will buy that beautiful blue

Cascade of granite

And the kitchen table will go there...

But the town melted back into the plants and rocks

And flowed away,

Without a sound.

Lying beneath a tree

A slab of rock

     So hard, so uncomfortable to lie down on

Yet so soft

     So close by, so cool to the touch

Yet so unreachably far.