In a two dimensional image
Time stops as we jump into the river,
Walking on water,
As if we can’t quite commit to the chill
Our fingers laced forever
The sky frozen blue
I float between the dock
And the stream, center stage
My daughter hovers on my right
As close as a shadow
Our wide-open gibbous grins
make our dimples ebb and flow
My son, suspended on my left,
Extends beyond the gap
That grows between us
Like the distance that connects stars
While donning an eclipsed smile
In another family photo
we stand beside the lake, dripping
My daughter, her hair highlighted in faded purple,
this time on my left
So close we look like a hug,
with no room for shadows
Our crescent lips reveal teeth
My son leans away on my right
He has stretched into thinness,
grown into his baby fat,
So proud to stand, at long last, taller than me
A far-reaching space separates us
Even as I attempt to pull him closer
His waning lips a thin line, a smirk
he lives in photographs
The space between us, big enough to swallow me whole
Like a full moon.
The car flipped ejecting him through the windshield.
A seatbelt would have saved him.
