Skittles on a slow coruscating concrete alley
floodlit for a few children learning patience
to the drowsy pulse of cicadas’ indifferent applause;
the balls as they roll make the same sound as the dead
leaves blown by a slight breeze.
This is isolation you graduate to.
As the bus pulls in, then out,
taking its soft cargo of murmurs back behind the night-curtain
of the island’s switchbacks,
they glance up from the game
at the only other distraction offered by an empty night.
