WEBVTT

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When you have a child
who's good at something

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that you're very bad
at, your vocabulary

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can increase in time.

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And I wrote a poem
that came out of that.

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I'd go down the hall and
say, what's a prime number?

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Could you try to
understand it just enough?

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I asked Lynn Luria
before the reading,

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what do athletes do
before their event?

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As I was sort of pulling my
seat and tearing my hair out

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in the hall, she
said, they scream.

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I didn't do that, so I'm
still a little twitchy.

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"The Missing Boy,"
for Etan Patz.

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Every time we take
the bus, my son

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sees the picture
of the missing boy.

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He looks at it like a mirror.

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The dark blond hair, the
pale skin, the blue eyes.

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The electric blue sneakers,
with flashes of jagged gold.

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But of course, that kid
is little, only 6 and 1/2.

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An age when things
can happen to you

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when you're not really safe.

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And Gabriel is 7, a
practically fully grown man.

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Why, he would tower
over that kid,

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if they could find him and
bring him right here on this bus

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and standing together.

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He sways in the silence,
wishing for that.

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The tape on the picture
gleaming over his head,

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beginning to melt at the
center and curl at the edges

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as it ages.

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At night when I put
him to bed, my son

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holds my hand tight and says,
he's sure that kid's all right.

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Nothing to worry about.

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He just hopes he's
getting the food he likes.

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Not just any old food, but
the food he likes the most.

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The food he is used to.

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