Emily Running -- Robert Stolorow (2002)



"Don't forget about your finitude, Dad. And mine."

My favorite time of day
       
is walking Emily to school in the morning.
       
We kiss as we leave our driveway
       
so other kids won’t see us.
       
If I’m lucky, we have a second kiss,
       
furtively, at the school-yard’s edge.
      
My insides beam as she turns from me
    
and runs to the building where her class is held,
     
blonde hair flowing,
     
backpack flapping,
     
my splendid, precious third-grader.
     
Slowly, almost imperceptibly,
     
a cloud begins to darken
     
my wide internal smile—
     
not grief, exactly, but a poignant sadness—
     
as her running points me back
     
to other partings
     
and toward other turnings
     
further down the road.