Everything can be saved, but I don’t remember how. The park’s warm, sunny. The busker’s amp cuts out on it’s a cold and it’s a broken. All last night a robin sang like a squeaky door, serenading streetlamps and rats. Now he pecks at grubs, at dried worms. We are small, temporary. I could fall right up the sky, puff into ash against the sun. Still my children smear powdered sugar on my pants, toss banana peels on the sidewalk, scream. When they dance with each other no matter the song the dance is always ashes ashes.
Now they run from bumblebees, from ants—they dash ahead into the graveyard on Church Street, where they chase pigeons, throw breadcrumbs, hair streaming behind them the exact shape of April. When the firetrucks start passing by, they hoot along with the sirens for fun. They count the headstones one by one.
Author's Note: This is set next to the First Parish Church.
Poetry Atlas has a number of poems about Harvard, including others by Sam Cha.