Talking About the Day

Each night after reading three books to my two children— we each picked one—to unwind them into dreamland, I'd turn off the light and sit between their beds in the wide junk-shop rocker I'd reupholstered blue, still feeling the close-reading warmth of their bodies beside me, and ask them to talk about the day—we did this,we did that, sometimes leading somewhere, sometimes not, but always ending up at the happy ending of now.Now, in still darkness, listening to their breath slow and ease into sleep's regular rhythm. Grown now, you might've guessed. The past tense solid, unyielding, against the acidic drip of recent years. But how it calmed us then, rewinding the gentle loop, and in the trusting darkness, pressing play.