Theory of Relativity

When I was a child, winter quilts turned to mountains in my father’s arms
as he heaved them out of an icy silver glacier of a trunk.
They became snow white hills spread across the bed
as I jumped and glided over them, squealing with joy.
How big the tables looked as I hid beneath them,
pretending they were caverns or secretive dark stations
where ghost trains came and went, visible only to my eyes.
How big my tiny sorrows—an unsolved sum, a pack of new crayons I forgot in the classroom,
lost and never again found. How big the life in front of me, how expansive the space
between memories. Now as I look back, everything is finite
like the mouth of the tunnel drawn tightly on both ends. The promise of a future
slowly turning and gleaming back in the past.