Allowance

Dayle Olson

"Diablos Rojos" by Ray Cooper, Oil on Canvas

We are playing checkers
on a wet picnic table, 
driven outdoors by people taller than us
who share our last name.

Our fingers are caked
with orange Cheeto dust
as we plot and jump,
collecting the plastic spoils of war.

She wins but I don’t care.
We stand, our shorts damp,
then get our bikes from the garage
and clip playing cards to the spokes. 

We coast down the hill as fast as cars,
the fake motors roaring in our ears,
each of us carrying fifty cents
to blow on a cone.

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