A thousand children. How could I remember
all of them? I was the teacher; they were there
to learn. Those were our roles; that was the contract.
They would move up and I move on, for all of us
always a new beginning.
But now and then
one will return to haunt me, like the girl
whose secret friend drove a red plastic car.
I have it still. He was a tiny version
of myself.
The boy, his skin flaking
and cracked with eczema, trying to resist
the urge to scratch. How could he bear to wake
each day to face that life? Yet I was proud
he claimed me for his brother.
Another girl,
seventeen, crossing the Alps, moved beyond tears
by her first sight of mountains.
Do they remember?
Maybe they do. A young man in the street
I met by chance surprised me by recalling
how I read Winnie-the-Pooh when he was small
and did the animals in different voices.
So many children, so many years have gone,
but memories, like hope, can linger on.