The park’s full of German backpackers and local boys in fake Lacoste shirts pretending they’re not sizing each other up. I sat by the chess tables and ate a sandwich from paper — salami, cheese, the kind of meal that tastes like the future if you let it. Old men argue about gas prices like they’re debating chess moves, but their eyes keep flicking to the kids playing near the fountain, as if to check they’re still there, still theirs. Two Roma boys kick a deflated ball against a wall, rhythmically, like a protest no one’s translating. I didn’t write it down, but I made a poem in my head — three lines, sharp as broken glass. It’s not enough, but it’s mine.
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