A man stands, arms tightly clenched across his chest,
and the child retreats.
The man opens his arms wide like wings,
and the child jumps into his embrace.
A woman shears the hedge between backyards
as a neighbor ambles up on the other side.
Their words pass easefully over the green divide.
When a boy throws a rock hard against a wall,
it boomerangs back and hits him.
When he skips a flat stone across a shallow creek,
droplets lightly sprinkle the water's surface.
A girl from here meets a boy from there
on a bridge spanning a great river.
They talk and laugh and touch,
surprised at how much they have in common
and enchanted by their differences.