(for Donna Gail)
•••
Granite Bay, summer 1966

We are fish out of water, little sister,
far from where we started:
flat land close to ocean
choked with palm trees
and orange groves, sidewalks
for roller skates and bikes,
Disneyland, four grandparents,
two aunts and an uncle and
two older girl cousins we adore.

Now we find ourselves
hundreds of miles north,
amid hills laced with giant-armed
oaks and long, waving grasses
that lighten under summer sun,
like our hair that grows more
blonde each day. Our skin pinkens,
too, with itchy poison oak
bumps that teach us:
leaves of three, let them be.

We live next to a big lake
that floats the wooden ski boat
Daddy built with Grandpa.
And next summer, after we
finish all our swimming lessons,
Mommy will float with us
in the deep blue, steady us
until we are pulled to our feet,
on long, wooden planks,
wobble a bit, then magically skim
across this liquid expanse.

We are girl fish growing gills
that allow us to breathe
this new kind of air.