present

I see the box in a shadow behind closed eyelids,
a portrait of my computer screen,
its light etched, for the moment, in my vision.
I hear the fan’s whir beside my son.
It stirs a thin sheet of humidity, sounds like childhood.
My son’s spoon clinks the sides of a small, white teacup
as he scrapes up the last bits of chili.
My other son, nestled in their bottom bunk behind a door-less wall,
speaks in soft syllables, giving a voice to two-inch, plastic figures
in a world he and his brother created.
The sky rumbles as an airplane passes miles above our heads.