Age six
Summer
My best friend and I walked
To the end of the McKinley Road
On Falmouth Foresides.
Portland across the harbor.
The color of the water was a Maine blue.
Seagulls skated through the cloudless sky.
Chaney pulled out darts from his father’s den.
He handed me one.
I threw it
The dart struck a seagull in the neck.
Its wings quivered,
The bird fluttered to the mud flat.
Blood spewed from the wound.
Chaney and I watched the bird die.
The incoming tide lapped over the gull
The tide washed the corpse into the harbor.
Chaney put away the darts.
I hadn’t even aimed at the gull.
We walked back home.
Neither of us said anything to anyone.
Not even to Cathy Burns.
We both loved her.
In 1960
Chaney drowned in Sebago Lake.
He was eight.
Always will be eight.
I will never forget him
Nor the seagull.