Jump Ropes

 Where did they go?
 They used to be everywhere
 in good weather,
 those wobbly parabolas.
  
 Little girls, holding
 one end in each hand,
twirled the ropes
 into spinning doorways,
 string lintels,
 stepping over them,
 rhythmically, lightly,
 over and over,
 carried by song.
  
 The beat of the rope
 against the hard ground
 kept time for the breath
 of the skipping girls.
  
 Where did they go?
 Into air?
 Into the ground?
 Into echoes 
 all around?
 Into cadences
 everywhere?
   
 Leslie Schultz