The boy floats. From the edge of the pond
you watch as he drifts farther out. He is small
in his red-striped shirt and he mouths words
for everything above him: tree branches
and all the planets. You think, He directs the sky
this way. He breathes, and his chest, pressing upward,
keeps the sky aloft, and beyond it the sun, his
favorite marble. A bird glides overhead
on its rusty breast. It is a speck where the silver
is scratched from the sky. The one flaw
in the back of the mirror. The world is imperfect.
Today this makes a god of you. Through the opening
you watch the boy flying on the water.
His breath makes his shirt sing. You sing with it.
