Kite

[gurdonark]

A dollar store kite with tropical fish
Red twine from Wal Mart spun around a plastic spool;
Little suburb pocket park, flat, firehouse before,
suburb behind.
I tied on the the string and let it go.


The kite flew like a character in a movie--
it left my hands and reached the sky in seconds flat;
I heard myself chuckle a deep pleased chuckle,
like preteens do, when things are better than television.

My kite soared and twine spun out, while the man next to me and his toddler daughter coped with high wind on a traditional kite.
"She doesn't care how well it flies", he said to me,
"as long as it goes this high". He gestured to her kite,
struggling at ten feet off the ground.
"She got it free at her school".

"I paid a dollar for mine", and that moment I felt as though that
dollar was the most valuable dollar I ever spent in my life.

The kite turned. It plummeted down.
I reeled in line. It came up again.

The kite turned again. It plummeted down.
I reeled in line. It plummeted down further.

Soon the kite found the only tree in the only backyard with a
tree in the whole tract home neighborhood, the sort of tree
that the tree farmer brings in and plants when folks move in,
because all the trees that preceded the tract are long ago cut down.

I reeled in red line.
The nice man with the toddler said "kite-eating tree", just like on television. I pulled the line in, and then I cut the line.
The kite adorned the tree.

I felt myself chuckle that deep chuckle, the kind of chuckle that preteens make when they grow up and remember their kites.