Sprinkler

Still as kids we sang God praises for the earth
when we could reach it and reveled in the soak
of spits and sprinklers when they splashed.
We’d step out from our sin smiling and
throw our skin through the rinse
just as the grass got sticky on our feet.

But once through the water jets we’d
hit the mud where we could leave a footprint
and roll down in the straw like animals ‘til
every bit of flesh was covered in the muddy pit,
but when those spoils itched we’d fling back
through the jets with a jump.

And if by jumping we could rise to heaven
from that hollow hit, some stayed rolling—
but I swear some of us made it.
--Poems from the Sprawl

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