Time Served

Some line has been crossed, some chapter finished, because it just doesn't matter any more whether or not I get the good review, the promotion, or the kiss on the podium. I have done my house-holding time, whatever that means. This last chapter has gone on for thirty years, more or less -- teaching, parenting, toiling away under the yoke of responsible obscurity. Not that I regret any of it. They have been good years. I remember coaching soccer at Himmel Park under a harvest moon, running with my sons after a tangerine colored ball, at home in my heart and body. I remember the dust storm on I-10 at midnight when I hit a retread sloughed off of a semi; that sent the car into the air at 80 miles per hour. The headlight and bumper were smashed, but the car held straight and I lived to tell the tale. I remember cold bicycle commutes to work, book bag cutting a groove into my shoulders. Fire and chocolate, black dogs and cherries. A cold moon, sharp spines of desert loveliness.