To Dance the Folly Down

A lawnmower carries on
Its two-stroke conversation
Fueled by fossils in the rain.

A parent waits in the car
While the middle-school girls play
Out in the middle distance,

Reacquainting each other
With themselves after the plague
Kept them apart these two years—

Having switched heights, having swapped
Tips on haircuts and dyeing
Just the front strands pink or green.

They’re tumbling out in the mist
On the empty soccer pitch,
And who will remember this?

The parent, who waits and reads,
The short girl, grown the taller,
The big girl, now the smaller?

Only you who reconstruct
This scenery from the clues
And memories of your own?

The mower pauses. The rain
Quits. The mist lifts off the grass.
You'll have to edit the past.