Gitche Gumee

"Superior it's said never gives up her dead" --Gordon Lightfoot

"If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you." --Michigan state motto.
 

We were up north; it was June.
My father, ten feet tall and carrying the sun on his shoulder,
explained to me how Gitche Gumee loved winter
and carried him with her far into summer.

I learned to skip stones that year--
spotted Petoskys as cold as the lake itself.
I spent time poured out across the old couch in our rented cottage
reading sci-fi novels I'd found.
They were full of futures and so was I.

Mornings, I searched for sea glass and empty shells,
the ends of my hair trailing in wet sand as I bent for them.
Down the beach, my parents argued in pantomime.
I was seven, a little pitcher with big ears.
By the time the big lake warmed, my mother would be hard and broken,
and I would miss my father, his shoulder empty where I used to ride.
______

for this.