maze of yellow tape wound ‘round the jungle gym
color wheel of red swing slides and green monkey bars
abandoned

absent too jockeying limbs, mother hens pedaling
soft alarm, the high-pitch tag and see-saw
of children’s voices

in their stead from a balcony high
a plaintive morning prayer –  Shachrit
her Dorian threads of melody blessing the resting hours

I look to the lone worshipper facing Jerusalem
his blue and white tallit draped overhead

while feet away at the rim of the park
an April wind whips the maple-leaf emblem of Canada
its flagpole clanging in unforgiving meter

A retired SUNY Associate Professor, Carol Lipszyc’s most recent chapbook, In the Absence of Sons was published by Kelsay, 2020; her collection of stories on children and adolescents during the Holocaust, The Saviour Shoes and Other Stories, was released by Inanna in 2014. Web site: www.carollipszyc.com