No mothership
You skulk under the slide, so they’ll ignore
you. The monkey bars are their domain.
But they skip over chanting, taunting,
“Are you PT? Do you like ABC gum?”
You’re an alien in corduroys, blinking
behind thick lenses, through glassy wet eyes.
They shake their blond ponytails, stretch
their pink lips into smirks, and snort
as if everything you say is “Nanu nanu.”
You can’t tell them you know the joke,
that you’re the joke, you can only stare
as they double over gasping and shrieking
with what adults would call mirth,
“It’s already been chewed.”