(for beloved ducks everywhere,
including mine, whose half-birthday
is today)

We have seen real mallards,
the Duck and I, floating in pools
where I love to swim,

paddling and quacking their
way through turquoise ponds
quite unlike any wild water

in this neck of the woods. But
in the little oval pool where I find
myself one summer night,

a single yellow plastic duck floats.
I paddle over to what appears
to be this permanent resident

with a smiling bill and upend it:
Property of Pool #3, it says in neat
black Sharpie. Please do not take!

You must be the greeter duck,
I tell it, setting it back to bob
on the surface I have disturbed

with my own bobbing and
breast-stroking. The duck stares
straight ahead, as they do,

resumes its place in the deep end,
where it floats day and nigh
in this land where the Duck—

long ago dubbed by his then-young
niece and nephew—lives. I wonder
if the neighborhood mallards

swoop in for visits now and again,
if they acknowledge this imposter,
or if, as the Duck and I do, take it

as a tribute to their high-flying
selves from a wanna-be waterfowl
with a friendly countenance

welcoming all of us,
the feathered and the un-,
who drop by for a dip.