The bus steps are high, but William clambers up gamely.
Doors shut. He peers out a print-marked window.
From the street corner, I wave, wistful as a soldier’s bride
as his bus pulls away and turns a corner.
At noon the yellow bus returns him
to the same place where I’m standing again.
He thinks I stood there all day, waiting in his absence.
When he finds out I left to play tennis,
his forehead crumples like paper in a wastebasket.
Now he knows I can move on my own without him.
Tears drawn from the well of desertion form in his eyes.
I’m his first love and his greatest disappointment.
Margaret Hasse, “First Day of Kindergarten” from Milk and Tides, published by Nodin Books. Copyright © 2008 by Margaret Hasse. Reprinted by permission of Margaret Hasse.
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