It was a simple thing

The man reached in and snapped off the treadmill

Came in very close to the boy’s face

Told him “the rules”

Only it turned out “the man” didn’t know the rules as well as he thought he did

Rules like the way a single pebble can make a concentric circle across the whole chest of a river

Or the way the question about what you would do with a time machine

Might just define a person

Forever, forever is how wide and how deep and how long I will

Love you like a pebble

Thrown right at the heart

Of moving water.

I can’t stop thinking about how he lets us

Draw pictures in the wet cement

Our little hands, our squiggly messages

No one would call this art

But they might call it

Mine, fierce love