by Julie Weiss

School morning physics

Today starts off in slow motion, time a hot miracle, cascading down the icy slopes of my body. Time a puddle so precious, my feet turn to rippled gold, my lashes to jewels. I crown myself queen of euphoria, sparkle atop my mountain in the lidded dark before sunrise. Before my children rise. Who needs the grind? I proclaim in my queenliest sigh. But time, ever the jester, pulls heat out of water like a chain of magic scarves. Time is master of misdirection, slinking out of the bathroom as I wipe its breath off the mirror. Time holds many voices in its throat. It can speak in shadows, like a five-hundred-year-old dungeon, or peal schoolchildren awake at seven. Mine squeeze time shut, rub it all over their faces, stretch it into cat-like proportions. After they drink a chocolatey mug of the stuff, time riots, like a village of disgruntled subjects. It launches my children´s clothes everywhere but on their bodies. It rolls itself into a rubber ball, and my son takes shot after shot, banging time against the playroom door, while my daughter holds up a ruined art project, time thundering out of her mouth. By now, I´m pretty sure the neighbors are pulling strands of time out of their scalps—I know I am. One of my children must have provoked the other, because now they´re hurling time at each other like horse dung, or spears. It´s December, so time is hanging from the ceiling lamp in the living room, work of our resident elves, who have a month of it at their disposal and won´t climb down until they´re found. Time is at the front door, pacing back and forth, clacking its heel on the hardwood floor, scowling because none of us is ready to pile into its carriage. I can already see my 8:30 students on the other side of the computer screen, crushing time as they send flustered messages to my inbox. To my academy. I can see my pockets, emptied of time. Our fridge, our home, our lives—timeless. And that´s when all time breaks loose.