ducklings

down by the docks we find a duckling

cason hands it to us in his palms
miss he says do you want this?
it shivers in my fingers

grace and I swim it to the rocks
the four boys on the shore watching
every move, the paddling feathers
amongst the sea waves seem
incongruous, jagged like the current

what do they eat? kyle asks insistently,
as the small bills snap up floating seagrass
bread? aaron ventures

I tell them what I was told—that bread isn’t good for birds
it expands in their stomach, popcorn is better.
aaron laughs and chastises himself,
I guess I’ve been watching too many cartoons.

we name the ducks taylor and alex
names for both girls and boys
(aaron suggests donald and daisy
he insists he can tell the genders
by the tuft of hair on one’s head one is yellow yellow yellow
the other is black—that’s how I know)

when kyle asks which one is bigger?
cason thinks it’s the smaller one—
small things can be older he says wisely
like me, I’m smaller than you and I turned eleven
last year kyle grunts, his eyes on the feathers

as grace and I float the two birds
swim around us in figure eights

miss, can you take them with you?
toes dipped in the water, cason asks again.
the boys’ upturned faces are like
unfurled flowers, vast expanses
present in the small space between ear to ear
endless seas, infinite blue

we have to leave them here, we say
we have to let them learn to live on their own

the boys think within a second. can’t they get eaten?
kyle is worried about them floating away,
justin sits on the edge of the dock eyes wide.
what if they float out there?

for a moment, i look out to the waves and try to imagine
our little ducks above the sharks, above the coral, the boats
that crisscross this bay, their smallness in infinity

they can get eaten anywhere I say, but they’ll learn,
they’ll learn to defend themselves.
the harshness of life is too harsh on this island
for a moment too harsh in this small shallow cove

how will they learn? how will they not get eaten?
aaron presses me, his eyes red from salt
four gazes covering every inch of my skin

i try to think of the best way to explain myself—
do you know how some birds learn to fly? they nod.
They step off a tree branch and they fall,
the learning, it comes in the falling.

aaron nods again, i saw that on TV,
caston says he read it in a book.
the four boys let the ocean whisk between
their toes, grace and I tread water to float,

and in the space between us
the warm bath water that threatens
to gulp us down whole,
taylor and alex keep swimming.