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Sport 41: 2013

Lynley Edmeades — During

page 174

Lynley Edmeades

During

Boys of an indeterminate age are playing
and we’re walking around the periphery
of their basketball game. A slap of skin
against the concrete; a groan from one
whose voice may be breaking. I watch
the little people whose five year old minds
I adore beyond my own understanding
toe the line that marks the older boys territory
and walk on, towards their new classroom.

This may or not be a coming-of-age tale.
Perhaps it says more about me than them—
the twins who have occupied a niece and nephew
space for five years of my lengthening life—
that it is lengthening and these children
are not mine. And their still-smallness
in the shadow of these ball-clad giants
on their first day of what might be—
if they’re anything like me—the ongoing
schooling of their life, looks to me like
some kind of tear-provoking parody.
Time has rushed past, like a wild coastal wind,
and has swept them up and their parents up
and their grandparents up, and me up
and before I know it I’m the one landing
on the concrete on the basketball court
outside the classroom on their first day of forever,
grazing my knee as I reach to grab what rolls away.
page 175
Tomorrow we’re going swimming during school time,
the teacher says. What does during mean, my niece asks.
During is something that happens in between,
I try to explain. Like now
and now,           and now.