“How did it get so late so soon?” — Dr. Seuss
Every parent knows that sensation, that familiar cocktail of despair mixed with happiness, nostalgia, and maybe a little bit of nausea, when you realize your baby isn’t a baby anymore. That’s how I felt last summer as I sat quietly watching my son palm a nerf football in the deep end of the pool. It’s true what they say about time—blink and it’s gone.
In The Deep End
— for my sweet Luca
Your sun-kissed head bobs
just above the surface
in the deep end,
cobalt-blue goggles on your smiling face,
a nerf football in your tiny hand.
You’ve grown, gotten taller
and somehow learned to swim.
It feels like only yesterday
you were afraid
to jump
without the lime-green floatie,
when you stomped with your T-Rex
and splashed with your plesiosaur,
whose blue-gray body I spy
far across the way,
belly up and spread-eagled,
floating in the shallows.