Ban On Barefeet

A nail? When did you step
on a nail? Where?

Silence.

The girl’s ten-year-old mind
Scrolled through summer days
blurred one to another.

Baseball field?
A walk to town on the railroad tracks?
Cardboard sliding?

Cardboard sliding.

Deb found a sturdy cardboard flat,
perfect for extra slick dry grass. Rides
were wild. Five friends

careened
laughed
collided,
screamed
down long runs,
pushed past hunger,
exhaustion.
Nightfall arrived. They stopped.

A smile traversed her face.

You think this is funny?
We’ll have a doctor’s bill.
You’ll get an infection.

The weapon, it turned out,
was not a nail, but a needle,
from her mother’s chaotic
sewing room floor.

Deb maneuvered crutches for weeks,
suffered no infection and, after that,
in the sewing room, everyone wore shoes.

Originally published under the title “Cardboard sliding” in Evening Street Review, Vol. 22 (Autumn 2019)