Hope blooms outside a home
of ordinary brick and nails.
Small feet patter the floor
toward the serenity of open sky.
For the briefest of moments
madness erupts into the streets.
Then the world forgets again.
Cool chalk soothes sweaty palms.
With a single scratch,
concrete becomes a gently sloping stem.
The veins of each leaf
as simple reminders of our own
as porcelain crackles like
thunder through the windows.
Determined eyes navigate each curved petal
more certain than that house's haunted corridors.
Each stroke a reminder to the travelers of Hope's sidewalk:
Knee scrapes and
back bruises heal.
But some things never will.
