Kerry Ryan - Playground

All those awkward years
you didn’t realize you were training:

Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack
clapped fast, fast, faster
to the recess bell

Automatic hip-flick, palm-sting
like flat leather slap on hand pad
until your fists blur,
whip-sharp, hard

Not the school wall
but your partner’s gut
that catches a medicine ball
She heaves it back at you,
shoves air out of lungs

Pink plastic double-dutch,
little girl nonsense songs
drowned now by heavy metal
as you slice air
into rope bites
thin as ticks of stopwatch