If one moves a child’s desk
the vantage point changes
like cloudy lead sharpened
twisting away pencil wood
as orange rinds.

No one hated the sound
of chalk as much as Rachel and I.
We wanted to wipe away the dust
gunpowder across the blackboard.

We needed permanence
like initials or a dirty word
carved in wet concrete.
A drawing of “boobs”
still acts as a cornerstone

just past the driveway we would play in
until the cars pulled up from work.
The crude breasts – a figure eight
like infinity sprawled on its side

will always represent tiny laughs
batman training wheels
painted strike zones on red brick
and smearing fireflies
to watch the seven second glow
like bottle rockets
politely murdered across the pavement.

There is a delicate gust
when a child opens the lid of a desk.
Sometimes paper stacks
high as pancakes.

It creates a pillow
to soften the edge
when a pencil learns its way
around the lip of a letter “R”.

Rachel and I stopped
using lower case.
Every letter capitalized.
Though Rachel still dotted her “i”
to remind us

of how much smaller we are.
When my desk turned to face hers
for the first time
I forgot how

to round the tails of the cursive letters
in my last name.
So now, eleven years later
with Rachel traveling

somewhere swaddled in airline
food and a briefcase
and me rummaging through dirty jeans
at the laundromat searching

for one last quarter I stop
every time I come across a new sidewalk
to carve a giant awkward cornery
figure eight in the soft concrete

because it isn’t often
we see a desk fully shut
letting the rubber touch
like rebellious magnets

or have the chance to write REALLY BIG
and still dot our “i”
without it being erased
from the chalkboard.

It isn’t often
we get to see a firefly
spell itself out
for more than a moment.