[Sarah takes her niece and nephew to the trampoline park]
By Brendan Todt
Sarah takes her niece and nephew to the trampoline park and for thirty-six minutes mistakes another boy in a blue tee and shorts for her nephew, who suddenly appears behind her to ask for money for a slushie, which she gives him.
In the dodgeball pit, the niece hits a boy with the ball, and hits him again, and he will not leave. The nephew comes back with a blue mouth and hugs Sarah and returns the little bit of change. The niece attacks no one but this boy, though no matter how many times he is hit, he never leaves. Games never end, because they cannot, though some children tire and remove themselves to the side before entering once more. They are beginning, perhaps a little too early, to understand the nuisance their lives present without the accompanying prospect of their deaths.
The nephew disappears into a huddle of girls he must know, or now knows, and Sarah composes the first sentences of a poem in which the sunflower, finally, forgives its moon.
In the dodgeball pit, a father has intervened and pelted the boy, over and over again, and Sarah is too far away to see if those are tears on his face or just a blip in the bad overhead lighting. Then one of the other children strikes the father, and another, and another. And when together they all shout for him to leave, Old man leave, Old man leave, finally, he looks back at his own daughter, also shouting, and he does.
About the Author
Brendan Todt lives in Sioux City, Iowa. His poem “Because the Living May Be Worth Something, Too” was selected as a Best of the Net nominee by Ekphrastic Review. He won the 2021 Juxtaprose Poetry prize. He teaches creative writing at Morningside University.
