“Isn’t it fun to gallop in a princess dress,”
I say, calves
deep in the sludge
we call ‘The River’ in the woods
near the bay. Some would’ve waited
to hear Momma yell
like a Saturday cartoon through the suburb,
but I knew Daddy’s whistle as it waded
over the neighborhood,
between my ruddy knees,
like the hand of God
chiding at a sinner in church: “Ain’t
you oughta put some pants on,”
it shrilled.
My reply came twenty years later: a leak
in my holy Christmas boots and a tear
in my daughter’s hand-me-down dress.
We slosh
all the way home.
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