Somewhere Swimming

like everyone, I love children, 
their fat leg rolls, their mussed hair,
their little sneakers lighting up the summer.
once, I was small like that, a curious wandering eye, 
a bell or pinwheel turning my head,
the gap between my mother’s teeth
beckoning me back.

somewhere swimming inside me is a question
I don’t want to answer. it’s not my name I hear,
but something else, drowning in its own fluid.
a girl on the ferry smiles at me. I smile back—
& it seems to mean the world to her.