He concentrates on his Legos, serious,
his little-boy eyebrows practically meeting in the middle.
"Is it a spaceship that you're building?" I ask him,
sitting across from him at the redwood picnic table in the backyard.
The fog is beginning to roll in and I'm rubbing my bare arms against the chill.

"Shut up. I'm working." He doesn't even look up.

He sometimes retreats to his bedroom for hours,
the door shut, working on something — a project, he says.
His mother would like him to be a scientist.

No more silly lisp, pushing air out through the gap
in his front teeth: he never even laughs anymore.
I sneak a look at the prescription bottle in the kitchen —
it's sitting right out there on the spotless white tile counter,
next to the Centrum multivitamins.

Ritalin, 10 mg., blue.

I pick up the bottle of pills and hold it upright between my forefinger and thumb.

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