Playground Elegy by Clint Smith

 

The first time I slid down a slide my mother
told me to hold my hands towards the sky.

Something about gravity, weight distribution,
and feeling the air ripple through your fingers.

I remember reaching the bottom, smile consuming
half of my face, hands still in the air because

I didn’t want it to stop. Ever since, this defiance
of gravity has always been synonymous with feeling alive.

When I read of the new child, his body strewn across
the street, a casket of bones and concrete, I wonder how

many times he slid down the slide. How many times
he defied gravity to answer a question in class. Did he

raise his hands for all of them? Does my mother regret
this? That she raised a black boy growing up to think

that raised hands made me feel more alive. That raised hands
meant I was alive. That raised hands meant I would live.