That's How It Feels

While watching a fair-skinned autistic girl

On a playground beyond a fence and locked gate

Bend to touch the pavement and smile,

Touch the pavement and smile,

Touch the pavement and smile,

Touching the pavement and smiling,

Bending to touch the pavement and smiling brightly,

Touching the blacktop with her pink index finger

Then smiling, the poet was roused for perversion.

When he showed the authorities his notes they said,

“You ain’t no poet, friend, but prolly no reprobate neither.”

                                                                             -J. O'Brien