Pines

Higher Dad! Higher!
yells my son.
Genuflect to the earth,
arm coiled,
wrist cocked--
I fling
the chewed old tennis ball high above the Norfolk pines,
soaring, high, higher,
high as a hope.

I can still wing it, goddamnit.
My shoulder aches from it, goddamnit.
He is on that disappearing dot, drifting,
back, back, over just a bit…
Now it grows, yellow again, hurtling.
And with the slightest lunge at the end,
he takes it with still soft hands.
Eight years old.

James Ryan