What if all the stores
collapsed into rubble
hauled away?
Or disappeared into the sky
like some concrete Rapture,
all the children left behind
no way to buy new toys
no need to wheedle parents?
Children look at playthings
in their homes,
broken, rusted, boring.
What for
the children of Eden
had Adam and Eve stayed,
eschewed the apple?
Skip rocks in a stream,
swing on a tree branch,
fruit wars,
count the stars,
love their pets,
outrace the four rivers.
Originally published in Mad Swirl Magazine