for Kate

My niece wavers near the top of the rope
pyramid, an easy fifteen feet from the ground.
The final push to the top seems insurmountable.
“Do it!” I say. “If you make it all the way up,
you’ll be champion of the playground!”
A timid heel on a rope, a final pull, and she
turns around, miles above the earth, all
smiles. I take her picture. “Now touch the top!”
She smacks the top of the pole. “How do I
get down?” She asks. “Who cares?” I say.
We laugh.
                     Before my niece winds a path back
to the planet, a younger girl informs me that
“nobody can be champion of the playground.”
I leave it to life and poetry to sort it out for this
six-year-old stick-in-the-mud because clearly
there is a current champion, and it’s my niece.