The Big Fork

All that exercise children like to get.

Their bodies not quite big enough.

Continuous practice. That leaping and running.

That turning they do in their chairs.

Legs too short. Arms like flippers, and the net too high.

The body could never be big enough.

They go about it in good faith. Stretch the hands

and legs. The arms. The spine.

So much banging about to do.

The kid hopping his bike up and down the cliff

above the sea. He can't get enough of it.

The steep of the rock. The difficulty.

This is the appetite they have.

How eager they are to sit at the big table.

Lift that fork to their mouths.

Get big like that.

And then the parents hauling them back.

Someone lifting you by the scruff of the neck.

. There's fun to be had and they won't let you do it.

Big is never big enough.

I saw it on my father's face when they

were lowering his mother into the ground.

All those years all we do is try to get past them,

the parents, and then we do.

Yesterday that kid jaggedly running

on new legs toward the water.

The parents suddenly after her.

The great blue deep she ran for.