Today I went among an orchard
with a ball of peanut butter on wheels,
which is to say I went apple-picking
with my daughter. And my queen,
mine and no one else’s,
She rode shotgun, too.

We all laughed, took pictures.
We did, I guess, what families do.
Which meant times were largely good,
though some hangry. But about the latter:
we repented quickly; by God’s grace
we were short with one another only a
short while.

But my time of looking at them, these gifts? Was l o n g;
long like God’s grey sky that day,
like the drive out there and like
the Moana soundtrack we played babygirl on the way back.

Yet here and there and there and here,
I’d look at them
because long ago my eyes decided:
time away from these two
was the worst kind of time.

So, we left the apple farm, got lunch,
changed a diaper and came home pooped.
Still I prayed, “Long live the day.”