It was mine. I was on vacation
with a girl. Two East Coast kids in Miami
that bought each other silver bands
from a roadside cart selling hemp necklaces.
It slipped off in the rooftop hotel pool overlooking
Ocean Drive, South Beach and the Atlantic.
You were twelve and in town with your family
from Duluth. You dove for the shiny thing
in the deep end and wore it on your thumb,
inventing a name for the boyfriend that gave it
to you until your father ripped it
off thinking it was a gift from the Peruvian boy
in room 313. He threw it off
the roof with all his Minnesotan muscle
and misunderstanding and it bounced
once on the sidewalk and settled
in a clump of crab grass near the curb.

 

By this time the girl was living
downtown with a guy she met at a harbor bar.
He found the silver ring I bought her
in a drawer with keys she saved
for fear she’d only discover
what they were for after she threw them out.
That ring now hangs from this guy’s neck
on a leather shoe string.

 

I want you to know promises don’t break,
they lose themselves, are picked up
by strangers. Your father was right to take
the ring from you. It wasn’t yours.
But there’s nothing for me to forgive you for.
It wasn’t mine either.