Children's Story

What I can't tell them is how normal time

sometimes folds just a little in the wind

the way a flag does, changing its picture.

It's like what's happening bends in and out,

but I just keep walking straight. At school once,

the crossing guard held up a Stop bar,

but I slipped under it and stepped out

into the street. The car that was coming

was a police car, and the policeman

stopped, shook his finger at me and frowned.

And everything around me blurred away to each side,

like a chalk drawing on the sidewalk when it rains.

The next day they sent me upstairs to be scolded

by a teacher who was all voice and no words,

no picture. Sounds scraped themselves

inside her throat, sharpening up as they went.

The next time I did it, I stayed home

for three days. I said I was sick

and my mother believed me. I don't mean

to make all these mistakes, it's just

I have other eyes looking someplace else.