Tonight
I whispered in Spanish
In a stairwell.
Without watch.
To an audience of no one.
I whispered in Spanish.

Accents lithe and spilling
down banister,
wrought and rubbed
down with hands
with ears
with soles.

In the basement the accents
met clandestine, huddling together
in the shadow of the staircase.
Each word tumbled from step to next step
Uniformed children came down a slide,
piling at the bottom.

At the bottom, skirts were torn,
tanbark mauled the white.
A boy in the corner watched them,
slurring in Spanish.

And it sounded like peach skin
separating from the flesh,
pulling and cussing.

I whispered about this.