"I wanna wear big boy underwear," Alvin whines
while I tie his wheelchair to the school bus floor,
and he explains to me (how) his sister is only four
and he's five, "almost six," and she wears panties now,
"not diapers," puckering his bottom lip up, crossing his arms,
"I'm mad," telling me how his mom puts spider man underwear over his diaper,
and it's "not fair," but I think to myself what to say to this five year old boy,
wondering if he understands why (the nurse) Amanda puts a tube in his penis after lunch
or if he remembers his feet touching the ground that dreary day
when the tire rolled over his little body crushing his spinal cord,
so I pause and say, "hold on," as I grunt, pretending I'm having trouble
with one of the straps but really I'm trying to buy time for wisdom to suddenly
strike me like a lightning bolt, when Alvin changes the subject,
telling me he had pizza for lunch, knowing I'm going to pretend to be jealous,
rubbing my stomach asking, "where's mine," and he always says, "I ate it up,"
then we both laugh, as I step around the yellow polka-dotted elephant
making my way to the drivers seat, rolling our quiet tongues half way to his house
before he asks me, "what are the clouds for?" and I begin to sigh with relief,
knowing the answer to this one, so I start with the rain watering the trees, the grass,
and explain how all animals need water, as I smoothly transition over to the air and temperature until Alvin says, "Traci," interrupting my college memorized,
Biological Science speech, he goes on all excited to say,
"they look like cotton candy," when I look in my rearview mirror to witness
his smile, as he raises his arms in the air,
throwing them together as if to catch a ball, while opening his mouth
he chomps his teeth down and says, "I wanna eat them."