Tiles

  "Pass the one with the pics," one said.  The other one had strings all over hands remembering.  "What's it smell like?" Another blew on gluey fingertips.  "You (i)cannot(i) keep burning the candle at both ends." The man fairly hissed.  Nonetheless passed the milk money envelope across the plasticky bench seat.  Sweat dripped from his wrists.  The girlish woman put a finger to the wetness, cradled the tear, and wiped it on a skirt pocket.  "Thith thrting," sigh, "Let me see."  "It don't go." 

     "With the others," a man in a BBQ apron almost fully turned to explain people not downton.  "A nature trip or something." 

  (i)They(i) didn't know.  (i)They(i) didn't have holidays.  At the Village it was the same as ever.  A person on an exercise bike, second window--the mom lifting a baking sheet towards a sofa, a trash can being pulled into a side door of a garage.  Then we'd be there.  There were two "playgrounds".  Once we'd given up on a Town maintenance person fixing up the Face Smashers (odd creatures on springs) playground we put a tac on that spot: (i)not safe(i).  We found others.  Even a big set of teeth right out in the open.  One Dad said it was made of Mexican plaster.  But that made a lady cry, so everyone talked over what we call things over five unopened bottles of pace sauce and a shared can of tomato sauce.

     "Not good," a babysitter said of the (i)shape I'm in(i).  "I'd recommend not sitting on these." She held up plastic headbands with styrofoam and glitterballs on them.  "And what happened to this one?"  She moved a leg clad in a tube sock with my soccer team's colored stripes so we could peer in.  We could see three.  Disassembled, smushed, and bent to shit.  "What was said?" 

     "Smash it.  (i)Smash it(i)." 

     "Okay, don't tell me what it was; I'll find out." 

  "Beat you to the horsey." 

  A look back.  "I will."