I’m looking out the window while my coffee’s getting cold.
There’s a collection of children’s playthings at the curb across the street.
This is how my neighbors dispose of things no longer wanted.
Sometimes with a sheet of paper:
FREE writ large.
There’s a blue plastic child-size table and two small orange chairs.
The table is set with orange plastic teacups.
A young man walking with a little girl of maybe four years old
passes by this scene.
The little girl stops for a closer look.
The man turns and calls to her,
but she stands her ground.
She points a finger at the tea set and says something to the man.
He walks back toward her, shaking his head,
holding his hand out to her.
She takes a few steps in his direction then stops.
She says something to the man,
then stamps her foot and walks back to the toys at the curb.
The man’s shoulders sag.
He approaches the child, hands open at his side, palms turned outward.
He says something.
The child sits on one of the chairs.
She smiles at the man and points to the other chair.
The man shakes his head and sits on the chair,
which is so small, his knees are at his chin.
The child passes one of the orange cups
across the table to the man.
He accepts the cup and smiles at the child.
They tap their cups together and sip the imagined tea.
After a while they stand.
The man hands both cups to the child.
He lifts the little table and chairs into his arms and follows the child up the street.
They disappear around a corner, and I look back
to that now-empty stretch of sidewalk.
E J Barron
E J Barron 