Precocity

The children on the playground hate me. They think I know too much. I am six.

I tried to play with them before, but they wanted to kill me, like push me off slides, or crash my bike with branches.

So I sit on this cold stump at the front of my house, normally reserved for old men and milk mothers.

It’s safer this way. Childhood has a tendency to weed out geniuses.

Bicycle wheels grind asphalt, bringing up dirt like those yellow storms we sometimes get from the Gobi Desert.

A thin wind lifts up the patriotic red scarves around the necks of the school children. A cicada song sharpens the air.

A milkman comes by, delivers the bottles and puts them on top of the daily newspaper, out of the reach of prying hands.

Old men play chess on a small circular table; the oversized map falls on their laps. They suck with fake teeth and expect courtesy. (Think again.)

Old women with bound feet, humped backs, and sagging breasts walk about like beheaded chickens, wanting to grasp me with hooked arms.

The garbage buyer comes by with his cart, meets the bean curd seller, head first. They yell and yell; staring, angry, then knowing they have completely different interests, keep going.

A man with a cloth banner spread in front, with plans to kill himself, has beautiful handwriting, will be here the day after tomorrow, alive as ever.

I count the dots on ladybugs, release the ones with seven, and squish the rest, until my hands are yellow and orange and smell like ground sesame seeds.