Here Is My Promise

I will take you out for coffee

serve you ginger lemon honey tea

pull chocolate bonbons out of rocks

feed them to you by hand

When it rains or when it hails

When the sun shines

I will hold a red umbrella over your head

give you my coat, give you my fan

Wher you walk on littered streets

I will pick up cigarette butts and

unanswered questions

replace them with lily pads,

replace them with yes

I will bait your hook

I will break my back

arms, shoulders

reeling in a 13 ton shark, and

later, on the dock, I will take

your picture standing next to it

and let you embellish the tale

I will shoo away the begging

children with toothless smiles,

open hands, and when, at days end,

we both miss a step, you will

curl your tiny body into the barrel

I have made of myself

and let yourself fall.