On 3 O’Clock Drive, a townhouse with double doors, one
green, one yellow, is the backdrop for a little girl playing jump rope. She
recites a rhyme, unaware it is poetry, unaware it is exercise, vaguely aware of
the faint tapping of the rope each time it hits the ground. It beats the rhythm
for her rhyme, something about teddy bears and buttons not made to make sense
but made to keep time, to propel the girl forward until she has to move aside
for someone to walk by. Flexing her feet beneath the shade of the tree growing
out of the sidewalk, the girl waits for the man to be out of sight before she
continues counting buttons on the teddy bear’s shirt, where surely some must be
kept in his pocket for want of space along the placket. But perhaps the teddy bear
makes a jump rope out of the buttons and sings about little girls in front of townhouses
with mismatched doors.
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