My little ones are big ones now and although I dreamed (then) of these child free days, I find I miss them horribly. So I’ve been thinking of their smallness, the “when they were mine” and close by and this poem came to mind. So for Mother’s Day, I ask for your indulgence while I share-

The Cygnet Princess

His red neck is how she knows
he is wild. He head bent toward hers,
red neck long and bowed,
on a lake far from here.
He takes her ticket,
(she always has tickets)
moves aside, grants her permission
to swim. The story ends here.
Her hands poised above play-dough.
“Gives me permission,”
her words.
She’s only four.
We’re interrupted.
Her father whisks
things away, runs bath water.
I know the memory of a four-year-old,
I know this story’s gone,
and yet, as she strips,
so long, too lean,

her back, knobby, exposed,
awkward,
her foot poised above bubbles,
I see the wild red necked swan –
red necked? No, vermillion—
tuck her ticket beneath his wing.
I can only watch
as she glides across the water,
each moment drifting
farther from the shore.