The Kite

Rather than zoom off into Tuesday

I hovered faintly trembling

as she grabbed handfuls

of beige couch. Just edging along

doing what everyone does

sooner or later with one scuffed shoe

then the next, she bounds in my footage

like a doll-sized deep-sea diver

across a no-frills vintage moon.

My father didn’t suffer

the same obsession with being there,

maybe a generation thing

or just his walking out in the end.

Lungfish who barely crawl still manage

to evolve. But even taking steps

to be different I feared I mostly loitered

long enough to smile before drifting off

like those kites I wish I’d flown

with him, running to get one

in the air the way I had to take two

or three strides for each of his

through lumberyards and barbershops.

Far places exist in the universe

of the possible only moments away

and every evening I climb

from my car like a man who can’t move

fast enough before the years

are up, learning all over

where now, what next,

the moon like a kite above.