Even though see saws are a thing of the past.
I’ll return to a warm June evening when my brother
and I have walked to the local elementary school.
We seat ourselves on opposite ends, hold onto
the metal handles and rise and descend, one in the air,
the other on the ground, small craters where children
before us have done the same with their feet.
We pull out tangerines we’ve stashed in our windbreakers,
peel them in unison, one of us suspending the other,
trusting a smooth descent. Years later, on an interstate,
he explains how truck scales work, that the driver stops
every so many hundred miles to weigh his cargo,
invisible load he’s been hauling over state lines,
and I wonder if we can counterbalance losing
our parents so abruptly like we did. He taps on
the steering wheel, composing a list of objects
that have identical weights: a toaster
and a human brain, a football and a box of sugar.
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Such an evocative and beautiful poem.