The kid cut straight through the middle of it

The kid cut straight through the middle of it,

didn't pause, didn't look back.

The moat still had water in it.

The wall still had its track

of shells pressed in one by one—

whoever built it, maybe seven, maybe eight.

The father laughed. Said something easy.

Tide's coming, anyway. It's late,

we should go. And the kid who built it

just stood there with their hands at their sides,

not crying, which was the whole problem—

seven years old and already the tides

of other people's business walking through

the thing you made and calling it nothing.

The footprint sat dead center in the moat.

The tide hadn't touched it. Something

was going to. But not yet.

That was the part I couldn't get out.