I am at the confluence today.

With my left hand, I reach back and touch yesterday, the always-blue sky, bright sun, florid breeze of my son’s birthday–his 10th on this earth.

I fluff his hair, thick and unkempt, trace his still-boy jawline and poke my finger into his dimple, one more beauty mark. I remember the labor of his arrival, the long hours of pushing him out which ruptured blood vessels all over my face and shoulders and chest.

He was born in the morning. I was sunburst and love-shattered.

With my right hand, I reach forward and touch tomorrow, the always-blue sky, searing sun, wan breeze of my father’s deathday–his 23rd out of this earth.

I watch his jawline, set with tension, trace the length of his shin bone, crossed and confident, over his knee, and note the needle-poked pads of his fingertips, soft, soft.  I remember the labor of loss, the long days of his leaving which ruptured time both before and beyond.

He died in the morning. I was sunburst and love-shattered.

In South Africa, there is a place called Cape Agulhas, where the chill waters of the Indian Ocean to the east bump against the warmer Atlantic waters to the west. There is a rock monument on the land  which marks this confluence. A person might stand there, in between, and reach her arms in both directions, imagine touching churning currents and shifting temperatures.

And what might it feel like to swim there? In the mix that both burgeons and dulls. Currents like blue-green tendrils reaching, binding, a tangle of both extremes, a place of crashing expanse?

Or instead, perhaps, one should simply float.