Miami – Rough Love

The love of a ten year old is rough love,
hard pokes, and reluctant squashy hugs.
It comes with loud complaints and rolled eyes.
She’s too cool now
for easy affection.
She’s just started across the sea
of what it is to be a woman.

Petulant, anger in her approaches,
she doesn’t want to need us.
It makes her angry
that she finds comfort in our hugs.

I, in all my sentimentality,
cherish these furious fierce
moments of connection.
I know she will withdraw more
as she finds who she is,
cleaving the ties to our family
to float free in the world,
a teenager spinning in the
whirlpool of her own self.

I know she will touch down toes
and come home again one day,
but that time of her adulthood
seems for across an ocean of growth.

She’s just wading in now,
but I can see in her face
there is an undertow.
I’ll walk along the beach
holding her hand
as long as she will let me.