A thunderous boom cracks and echoes
through my classroom
but out the window we see blue sky.
“It’s Fleet Week,” says Jose, when his tablemate looks scared.
“It’s just fighter pilots playing around,” he reassures us.

I go on with my lesson
and try to pretend that these sounds
are okay, that they are part of the fun
of living in a big city.
But inside
I am shaking.

I am reminded in this moment of how much you loved being a fighter, one of the elite,
and how once you turned to me and said, dreamily,
“I’d love to fly jets someday,” as if merely flying them would be the task.
And I think about the time you mentioned, so casually, that your mother left yoga early
because the helicopter hovering overhead was
distracting her

as I am distracted now
with my 13 year olds
whose mamas get shot in front of grocery stores
whose aunties get hacked to pieces with hatchets
for reporting sex crimes
whose every day existence
seems as violent as any war to me

Another boom rattles the windows
and I turn and smile at my students
who fight, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, every single day.

The echo of the plane fades into the distance
but I am not steadied by the din of young voices,
who know the danger is not for them this time,
who push themselves against the window and wait eagerly for the plane’s return.

It comes back again.
In the deafening roar, I close my eyes.
You are a million miles away, hearing the same sound under a different sky.
I see your face
I hear my students' cries of joy and
I wish
I wish
that things were different
for us all.