June 5, 2018

push/pull

The boys are fighting over who gets to drive the car. I want to tell them:
There are two lonely bicycles in the garage. Or, Your legs aren't getting any younger.
I think about my great-grandmother, who stretched into her late 90s
before drifting off for good one night. She survived two World Wars, rationed sugar, sent
her own young sons on a boat to America not to imbue them with a love of the open sea,
but to save their lives. Sometimes, I sound like my hard-chinned math teacher from 8th grade,
who grimaced whenever the calculators came out. She was, I've no doubt now,
reminiscing about the smudge of graphite sticks, the grain of pulped paper, the minds of children
well-oiled from use. The boys don't want to hear these stories. They'd rather fight over the car.
The air fills with the smell of skinny tires and old perfume and tarnished coffee spoons.