Eat Before You Go

A few fish.

Before them,
a mother.

Beside her,
a child.

The mother
was handling the fish.

Wet hands.

The child
looked toward the sea.

“Can I
go out and come back?”

The mother's hand
paused a moment on the fish.

“Eat
before you go.”

The mother
turned over another fish.

From her fingertip
a drop of water fell.

The child,

chin in hand,

sat beside the mother.

I
looked at that hand a long time.

I too
once heard those words.

I ate.

And then
I went.

Long after,
as I was painting the mother's hand,
a drop of paint fell from the brush onto that hand.

The mother in the painting

turned over one more fish.

Far off,
one boat.

“Eat
before you go.”