We are seriously playing,
dreaming of the backyard
of a once restless imagination.
There, a shadow is the place where we all stand, trying to avoid the burning sun,
while the sweet and sour smells from the kitchen door weaken our resistance
and until the voice calls summoning our hunger,
we carry out our mission of taking games seriously.

Words,
many of them we throw, eyes bandaged.
Then, they come back, in ricocheting despair.
Others are lost somewhere,
between the bronze stone wall where the lizard sleeps
and the cooling cobbles at our feet.
We are still looking for them,
half-heartedly, in rosemary pots
and scented lavender.

Slightly trembling, we are bold enough
to seek for the blind spot of unconscious explanations,
almost innocent as we smile at meaningless limericks
and songs that roll like marbles.

Blaming past games
of knock, knock ginger, of rock, paper, scissors
for missed opportunities, and missing ambition.
Still, we are seriously playing,
but did we notice how the shadow grew,
while we were busy with hot boiled beans
and the black cat found
a safer place to sleep?

The dream expands, the backyard is an inkblot,
not
the memory
of hungry eyes.
I wake up to the sound of my voice
that is calling them:
the end of hide and seek,
time to sit and share around the heavy dining table.