I push her around in that
Little Tike and she screams with excitement,
already long blonde locks twisting
in my manmade breeze.
Then it’s, “Your turn, Dad.”
So grown up already.
I eye the pink and purple buggy
      and decide it might work better as a scooter.
I stick my left foot through the back
and onto the seat.
 
Soon she’s running wildly around the roundabout
that circles the chimney,
narrowly missing the wood stove
and her carefully placed toys,
with me following making sounds like
Christine or some other hot rod.
“Hell on wheels,”
and she repeats me.
“I mean heck on wheels.”
Repeats again!
It’s really not much better.
Like that time she liked “Cake by the Ocean,”
but we didn’t know we had the
unedited version.
 
I just smile as we loop past my wife again,
“I’ll try harder.”
The little one mirrors, “Try harder, Dad.”


© by Matthew McGuirk.
Used here with the author’s permission.