Eighty

Do you remember me walking
on your back, while you counted,
groaning after a long day of whatever
it was that fathers did when they went
to work with latched briefcases?
Remember how I tried to keep my balance
until you got to one hundred,
but you always rocked on your belly
around eighty so that I would slide off
and have to start again?
Could you have known that I would
remember the feeling of flesh
sliding over bones under my feet
for the rest of my life?