Chatterbox

 

Chatterbox

She to whom talking is like breathing
at age 3 a mockingbird of words
wades in foam on a Pacific beach.

A sleeper-wave slams
her little body face down
floating.

I grab hair like seaweed
pull her up coughing spitting.
Later, wrapped in towel
she is quiet, thoughtful
when to my lurching heart she says
If I drowned would you have another baby?

The silence I could not imagine.

……

First published in Verse-Virtual—thank you editor James Lewis
photo by me of her