Memory Of A Playground

Watching soap bubbles boil from the lips of children
and the playground slides being swept clean
into the evening by vengeful breezes
and the lilt of autumn mothers hushing the newborn to sleep.

The soft breath which bubbles over cots
drowning them, sustaining them.
Addicting them to one place.
Does it ever change?

Even after the pavement has put on a new dress
and the boys who shatter liquor bottles
into the leaf piles left on the ground
have grown wary of the dark;

the bubbles still boil from their tailpipes as they drive past
the sirens struggling to catch up.
Chasing their unending happiness
into the narrow gap of a slide

that has already rusted over its skin.
Only a family of weedy dandelions linger,
hushing in the wind.
Too long has passed us.

Still the boys come back
to find scribbles still left behind on the benches and gum still left sticking to odd corners;
and to listen to the still, silent weep of men in their graves
as they try to catch the bubbles of the moment.
Drowning them. Sustaining them.
Addicting them to one place.

Writer – Haran Thirumeni
Editor – Josephine Sim
Artist – Sophia Pu

–May 2025–