In the summer, when the wind chimes shiver,
the light over the hills is like a beacon going
south. It can’t be going south for the winter,
not yet, for the geese are still here.
My daughter is feeding the geese at the pond,
laughing, smiling, talking to them as if they could talk back.
And sometimes they do.

I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of
her feeding the geese, so she could look back upon
it when she is twenty or thirty and smile.
Or better yet, I wish I had a canvas and
paints so I could draw my daughter,

a still portrait that has come to life before my very eyes.
I write about geese in poems, I write about the long
grass around the banks and my daughter’s jeans
pushed up tenaciously around her ankles so she
can walk into the water a little ways,
her hair in her face as she gives a piece of

herself to the geese, and the small, shallow pond.

Apryl Fox

 

Apryl Fox has been published previously in Strange Horizons, Offcourse Magazine, Dark Animus, Snow Monkey, Whistling Shade, and many others. She was recently published in Three Line Poetry and currently resides in Michigan.

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