We are heading for the lake,
the grass banks down beneath our feet
and below a coda of stretched water plays.
My six-year-old grips my hand in his,
hugging his toy boat with the other,
the soft urgency of his trot oddly
in sync with the regularity of my pace.

The ground dips with my thoughts.

I am at the lake's edge,
not this one in front of me but
another lake - a past lake -
where a red plastic ship
- Woolworth's cheapest - bobs wobbly
at the end of a clutched string.
My father stands behind me.
Tugging on the thread,
I turn to look at him.
He gazes unseeing over the water,
looking for something beyond it
and beyond that - absconding -
in an encrypted dream
- his dream: my nightmare.
His absence returns me
to my now sinking ship.

I stoop to steady my child
who is about to launch his boat;
his smile rides the careless ripples
as the craft courses on a cracking breeze.
I look up to see my father
distant across this lake.
Neither waving nor blessing,
he raises a brief hand of admission
then turns on himself
to merge with the landscape.

My boy bobs happy.
My nightmare: his dream.