2022. június 17., péntek

Ryan Vine: Preschool

We’re walking to the car, crunching snow

across the yard, overburdened, as usual


with backpacks and books and lunches

in bags, when my son says, You


would make a good grave. What? I say.

My gun could do that. You don’t have a gun,


I remind him, as he climbs into his car seat

and waits, smiling, for the familiar zip


and click of the belt. Dad, he says, staring

down the fingergun inches from my face,


you’re my best friend. Across the street,

the birch look thinner and whiter in snow.


I turn off the news, but too late—too late—

and drive slowly, so we can watch two crows


tuck and shoot through the tangled branches,

like the two he loves from his favorite


story book, Odin’s black angels, Hugin and Munin,

thought and memory, sent out across


the world each morning with the hope

that they come back. Today, luckily, we


unbuckle his seatbelt, and my son kisses

my hand before we cross the street.


Today we hang his coat on the hook

by his name, and he runs through


the open door and into the bright room

of children playing without saying goodbye.

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