are scraping across desks, frantically

the afternoon is leaking through the classroom windows and pooling around tiny sneakers

a sea of hands jet into the air when the door clicks behind me.

historically, I am good with numbers and bad with kids

but they don’t much care. any break I can offer from the math monotony is a welcome one.

we sit on the floor basking in a crisp red picture book, her voice faltering at the longer words

practicing vowel sounds in unison until her timbre brightens, each sentence rounding itself off at the edges.

she puffs up when she reads the last few pages herself

and we waddle back to class sporting grins and matching penguin stickers.