Five A.M.

Already dressed in camouflage my father sat at the kitchen island and scratched his short salt and pepper beard. He drank a Diet Pepsi and waited for me to put on an orange wool ski cap. I was fourteen years old, and all I wanted to do was go back to bed. It was five A.M.

The Pond

It was a lengthy trek through the pasture,
but one we were all willing to make.

The tops of our heads burned by the summer sun,
our conversation lost in the humid wind. Fields full
of waving green.