At the gate of every year
stands a guardian child who skips
from foot to foot and picks dandelions.

She watches her father approach
from the wasteland, his scythe
on his shoulder where she used to ride.

She has instructions to draw a line in the dust
turn him back to serve some other city
but her father knows her heart.

He whistles.
A young lamb, she jigs towards him
brings him in through the gateway.

Under the road a nest of rats
desert their store of seeds --
a brick shifts in the city wall.