When we leave the campground we won’t interrupt
their trek through the nature path identifying Indian paintbrush,
their single-file determination, their bent heads.

Or their search for marshmallow sticks in the pines
beside our site. They might be coming any moment
into the clearing to unfold their chairs around the fire,

their hair unbrushed for days, their pierced ears
newly healed. One might appear cupping a red newt
in her palm, another a shredded elbow.

On the picnic table, a centerpiece of moth wing, snake
skin. But there will be no way to meet them, no way
to gather up those girls who reek of bug spray and smoke.

Instead, we’ll leave them here ignoring us as we drive by
the river, where they wait, nets poised, for crayfish
with the nature center guide, their summer crush.

We’ll want to stop, of course, to ask what they have found,
fearing one or another’s heartache, but we will think
we have no time to stop, or plenty.

We will have left one water shoe behind.