Remember me, if nothing else, as one who lived.
—Kassiane
In the lowering sun,
my children and I
throw rocks
into shallow pools
beside the river
where the water
forgets to rush.
And though
the low light
spellbinds me
as it filters through
my daughter’s flaxen hair,
I find my thoughts
skip otherwhere
across regions of uncertainty.
Skip, skip, skip, skip
and sink. The rings
widen wherever
the stone
has touched.
And fade.
Skip, skip, skip,
and sink. It is
not that I don’t
believe in miracles.
It’s that I believe
in daily things.
Like how
in the low gold light
of May a woman
might see how
she has been a stone
and feel that
even now
she is changing
into, what?
something else.
Skip, skip, skip,
sink. Still water.
Expanding rings.