Fragments

What I most remember: Floor time at the end of a workday, I am still in button-down shirt, teaching pants, as we move plastic figures around in mock dialogue. Between the dramas playing out on the Brio trains, the animals in pop-up books, we work out the next moments in a delicate sword play of proximity and futures. A ball bounces and rolls as the park sinks into sunset, moonrise. Trips to the ER. Puzzling over algebra; brainstorming an essay about a trip to Mexico. Cheetah shirts, lion hoodies, and jungle pursuits full of roaring and leaping. Drawn out bedtimes. Falling finally into sleep. Washing out dirty diapers; hanging them up before class. Baby shit smell under fingernails as I post lesson agenda on dry-erase boards. The movement of you when you thought I wasn't watching. All of it, once so sharp and present I thought it would last forever, now fades. The edges have blurred, lost brilliance, are sinking, will soon enough be gone, lost to roiling sea.