by Lisa Rhoades

Years ago, at the beach, my child and their friend

scolded the waves as they crashed to the sand,

running at the water’s edge like those birds,

sandpipers perhaps, or black-necklaced plovers,

laughing and screaming, “Bad ocean! Bad!”

because of the accident they’d witnessed

the day before when their dad was flung headfirst

by the tide and broke his humerus at its neck

and stumbled toward them cradling himself

as he once had held them, but now

an adult in pain—the first they’d seen—

but of course, not the last.