The Crayons Will Melt in the Sun

As we leave for the pool,
we step over a little bird dead in a speckled egg
surrounded by black yolk and ants.

My kindergarten daughter is worried about her crayons.
I ask her, “How do you know the crayons will melt in the sun?”

“It’s in my mind,
I have lots of things in my mind,
unicorns and you.
You are always there.”

The yarrow and sage fade their yellow and purple in the sun.
We need grey for contrast.
The dark damp tiled dressing room
echoes anticipation. It’s hot.
I divide the universe in half, across the map of her small body.

“Everything,” she says, “is in my mind, always.”

We took the crayons from the car,
brought them to the pool
where the hot white deck registers 110 degrees.
She tells me to move the crayons, again,
before they melt. How does she know?
Her freckles bright across the bridge of her nose,
pattern out like chaos theory to her ears —
stars and colors go swimming.

The yellow plastic radio plays summer rock and roll
under the lifeguard — “walk!”

How can her little feet walk across the heat?
Brilliant water the goal.
The heat prickles the hair on my arms,
the top of my head.
A quick breeze, she bends at the waist,
head first she folds herself into the water.
Her eyes come up open,
mouth surprised every time.

Her colors don’t fade in the sun.
No one else, everyone else, moves away from her
like ballet, her dance is rhythmic to the quick beat of her heart.
I hold her towel, and remember when I could cradle
the back of her head in my palm.
Her taut soft scalp broke my heart.

She says, “It’s too hot. I’m too cold. I’m tired. I’m hungry.”

And I am responsible as if she were still
riding out her incubation within me.
Our bodies will always be one, without language,
yet our separation pushes her away so she can warn me
about melting crayons and walk
alone across the pool deck, jump into the deep end.
The day rounds in on itself as she takes to wing,
her small shoulders sharp and triumphant.