At sunset, your fist reverses into palm,
reveals the perfect skipping rock.
While March’s last gasp slaughters the sky,
you show our daughter the hip-crick,
the crater of pointer and thumb, the wrist
flick that galaxies the sea. You’ve done so little
of this lately, I tuck my complaints into a chasm
of later, watch the surface absorb each wound,
each ring expanding into an orbit of okay.
While she practices, I scoot so there’s room
for you on the log. You sit, then flick a spider
before its legs find mine. It’s easy, this kind of us.
Down shore, a heron hunts, patient as a century.
Above shore, seagulls giggle and gawk at our daughter
who is so terrible at skipping rocks that when she draws
back her arm, we duck in every direction.
