remember when she tottered, sand swayed away, how
we hawkeyed and leapt in sinking seconds to reac
legs up and belly roll, her head awash with waves
my heart a cavity in shock
short arms like bouncing buoys and finger aerials
we lifted her from air-less-ness, drowning a brief
moment of splutters and our cries
we rescued our fears for hopes: but how lives echo,
any future embrace is another toddler’s stagger
and to fall into the failing dunes
our lives in subliminal blinks, replays of frame
on frame of peripatetic lifelong glimpses
of any future survival panics
~~
for splashes into fate’s intentions on my thoughts
I watch you dress your dressing on the left breast scar,
on a soft snare drum skin, you pat
like slow strokes on a sick kitten, when fingers dwell
on the right your eyes fix on mid distance, ready
as if to guess the time to come
you say hands are silent rescuers a future
when you hold the doctor’s confirmation, only
scar tissue not breakout hardness— (let loose in soft tissue ducts.)
yesterday washed away like the failing dunes