Child in Big Toy

They were calm because it had never happened before,

because they thought it had, it must have, when designed, 

a tunnel to fit the child but not the adult. Then how 

if a child crawled there and curled and closed her mouth, 

how to get the child out? Send another in. Send in 

someone small. They were calm because everyone 

finds reasons to be calm when there is wind or sun or 

this coat at the base of the slide, it must be the child’s,

Come out. It’s fine. Come on, now. Come out. 

They were wrong. All of them were wrong. Some thought:

a saw! Some thought: calm down! They were getting 

somewhere with their thoughts. Part of the crowd grew 

angry with the other part for making a crowd,

so one crawled up into the tube until his chest stopped 

like his breath and he saw something wrong: 

the sun made blue in the tube. Something about the sun 

and black streaks from shoes. The crowd saw the half of him

left out kick then kick wild, so they pulled the other 

half out. They sat him up and someone groaned, 

someone said Enough, now, come on. Sweetheart, enough. 

Come out. Then another crawled inside, left her coat 

by the slide, passed the streaks, saw the blue, smelled the plastic

in her mouth that comes from plastic having caught

the sun at noon, the burning soon night-cooled,

a thousand black-streak tallies to mark the cycle of shoes then 

wider shoes of older children pressed inside by two 

to touch and make the space between them small—

this one heard a sound. Someone’s calling me she thought.

I’m found. So she crawled back. Remembered all. 

Moved aside. Another tried. Lost. Another tried.