To Play is to Resist

She plays on a skateboard
stolen from her brother;
their mother would never approve of this,
but, for now, she skates in secret,
the possibility of breaking but not
too tantalizing to let go of
for a girl of glass and clay.
This moment is borrowed,
is a gift,
one nodding to her country
and the other knees to the ground grateful.
The motion—her own—carries her forward,
she rolls along uneven ground,
learns the hard way what cracks
feel like to the human body.
She knows more than she ought to,
but has learned to keep secrets.
She’ll grow up someday soon.
But for now, she finds the
finite balance between things
and carries forward,
each stolen moment becoming hers,
and hers alone.

~ Alyssa Armstrong