We walk slowly against the sun, so we hear the bike
free-wheeling round the tree-shadowed corner
before the sparse and folded rider hurls past.
You say the growing whoosh sounds like a river flowing.
Then you jump and laugh. Why, I ask.
You tell me it’s funny how car shadows bounce.
I say I’ll write your clevernesses into a poem.
And also how your new joggers are already too high on the ankle;
How winter’s light imperceptibly sharpens your round cheeks
Which will harden to angles for squaring-up to the world.
Those things too.
And the baby-echo in the clear pitch of your voice as we chat
and how words still sound like you have sweets in your mouth.
I squeeze your warm hand, look quickly away
keep my sudden eye-damp for the middle-distance.
We head home to your soft-toy animals ranged
ready for a rugby game you’ve planned for them.
And I try not to think how one day they’ll wait
for the boy who has long left their games behind.
rocksandbones 