Spirographs

when we went to the park a few September days
before my birthday (I am trying to remember, but
it exists in that file of memories that are Technicolor
and incomplete) what did I do to provoke you?

did I play along when you created a game where
you kicked the soccer ball at the spokes of my tires
while I drove my pink bike in loping circles ?

I thought I was so much older but the candle on the
cake in the picture says that I am only six-- the scabs
on my cheek and eye still fresh from crashing to the
asphalt, and the training wheels recently removed

meant that there were only two wheels to leave
spirographs on the church parking lot. Loops that
seem so chaotic in the making, but turn out impossibly
beautiful and intricate.