A broken black flip-flop, plastic cilia shaped for a forgotten foot.
"No baby, that's garbage."
His lower lip rises as he looks up with indignant tears,
As if to say,
"Don't you love me?
If you do, then you love this,
For I am happy at play."
I scoop him up so quickly
He drops his treasure in a patch of weeds.
"Look at this bird, baby."
He rushes toward the robin, then the swingset, then me.
I look down at my feet and at the forlorn shoe nearby.
I want to remind him, to make him remember,
To assuage my guilt at helping him forget, a power I no longer want.
His smile begins wide on the swing and within a few minutes it is another happiness forgotten.
"Baby, I take you off?"
He pouts and the robin finally flits off.
Sent from my iPhone
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