The boy skipping over rocks
doesn’t intend a sousing, a heavy swatch
of sunlight strapped to his back,
his feet cumbersome in oversized sneakers.

His attention swaggers from the roots
he ropes by on, down to the water striders
which seem more plentiful this year.

Perhaps he envisions one in his palm, but
he quickly loses grip, his body a balance 
between composure and dread. 

Shocked by my watching his dunking, 
he rises from Deer Creek, t-shirt
and shorts strangely molded to him.

He avoids my eye, acts as though 
he’d intended this dunking. Aware how much 
a boy measures strength by saving face, 
I say nothing, don’t offer help.

He turns, heads downstream.

I too have caught things that home in water,
held them close enough to know
that the miraculous lives close by.
	

A man watches his daughter
as she wades into the water.

He’s a motion of attentiveness,
eyes strapped to his girl 
as though he could forever buoy her.

And it so happens he’ll have to fetch her
when she steps on a broken Coke bottle,
water bloodied, air shrinking from her scream.

He’ll lift her from the river, sit her on the beach
and carefully wrap, from the ankle down,
a terry-towel to bind back blood.

They will have aluminum crutches
when they return. He’ll help her out of the car,
eyes steadfast as river washed stones.

“This is how it’s done,” he’ll prompt,
then steadying her, she’ll take the crutches,
hobble to where her friends sit,

tell them about her trip to Emergency,
how many stitches were needed.