On the first day, a spell of yellow caution tape
and fake
blood seeds the girl’s imaginations.
I hang a
banner of light cotton pennants,
peel the
fake footprint pattern off the floor.
The room is
huge, perfect for the investigation
of movement
and ecstatic dance. Death was here
once, ok,
but we can rise above that bar.
My suitcase
with the word “Happy”
spelled out
in bright duct tape letters
shares
space near a glass-fronted cabinet
that holds
a dummy in a grey suit. He leans
as if he’s
been clubbed in the head. He has, the girls
decide, because look, I’ll bet he was coming up
from the basement when she hit him
with the brick.
We whirl
all week, spin outside ourselves,
bond into
the Hoop Unit. Girls, circle up, I
say,
and they
hoop to the center of the room, or I sing,
Hoop, Hoop! and they respond with a Hooray!
so voluminous
the glass in the cabinets rattles.
Every day
I’m witness to their methods
of friendship.
The peels from shared oranges
curl in the
corner on a paper plate. Decks of hoop
tricks
decorated, circumferences calculated,
personal
boundaries stretched, they twirl and laugh,
secure the
scene.
I hide the
film of storyboards set up by the CSI class
in a grainy
drawer, close the lids on footprint foam.
Happiness
sometimes has no key and so has to pick
the lock,
or spend hours filing down metal
until she
can spring herself and her partner, Joy,
who are the
perfect match. They court Trouble
on
occasion, but their work songs are so full,
sealed with
the physical evidence of a life well-lived.
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