happiness floods, stream of consciousness

cool air fading sunsets
silhouettes of schoolchildren
swinging
high high high up

I
don’t know what it is about
dipping temperatures
that evokes deep nostalgia
for Octobers
for plaid skirts that
weren’t enough
for holey
knit lumpgreen sweaters
for Halloween nights and
panda-looking
eyes

for reflective lakes reflective
tears reflective friendships
moving on we moved
on we’d moved on we
forget, we
forgot

to my left are babbling
indifferent silly raging
students in
lanyards, red and blue, gabbing
away as my head slow throbs from
gas-on-low
detoured-lost-for-the-third-time
teaching-highs-teaching-lows

to my right are circles of
renovation two years
too late of graduation young
frustration
running away to run
right back a quiet joy handpicked–
selected, curated, sieved through
plucked and chosen–it’s summer
forever, and
fall today

i zigzag in circles
into the warm
arms of memory

happiness floods

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