Father's Day on Baffin Bay

The little girl behind your back
rides steady on your Honda
on this salty day on open flats
upon the straight-on path that leads to Baffin Bay.

She sees a little to the left
and if she turns, she sees a little -- just a little --
to the right, but eggshell white
balloons her Humpty-Dumpty view.

Your helmet sometimes bumps her own
each time you rev the throttle, pop the clutch,
or squeeze the brake a bit too fast,
but as she blinks her eyes instinctively,
she doesn't seem to mind.

Her ears absorb the sound, attention tuned
to sorting through the m's upon the wind.
She tries in vain to break the cryptic code
that hides inside the palindromic drone...

The engine hums. The constant rattle
takes away her speech, communication
whipped away or left unheard through cartilage
completely numbed by fluffy foam.

Her signal fails to make it through
and so she opts instead to simply murmur
happy words which flow in song,
a string of random thoughts
that meet the meter of the motor
on the air which rises high above
the cresting dunes and fountain grass
to join the basic blue of summer's morning sky
and comfort crying seagulls on her seventh Father's Day
until she's filled with quiet silence and the calmness settles in.

She wraps her arms around your chest
and rests her chin against your back,
your old familiar t-shirt soft and warm
against her freckled cheek.

She has no cares and knows that nothing more
could ever matter more than holding
Daddy in her arms
along the road to Baffin Bay.