to my daughter on the first day
the evening after
the afternoon the
first time i saw your face
(echolocated sound transformed
3D model liquid crystal display
electromagnetic radiation retina
optical nerve occipital lobe)
i saw a rabbit
gently pass
on the walk to the supermarket
small eyes reflecting taillights
of toyotas
the morning i first saw your face
(flesh reflected star’s light)
gurgling blue
spitting old
suckling new
your mother bit my knuckle and said
i can’t believe it
three quarters orbit’s dream
four minutes passed
from head pressed out past sacrum
to arms and legs heaving push
to catch (i catch) and release
to waiting mother hands and knees
the morning afternoon evening
i last see your face
(radiant heat child’s gaze)
what i will see
daughter mother grandmother
a planted tree by
headstone with ancestral name
(your name)
tall and proud
bending in breeze
somehow i trust
it’s not for me
to say what i see
to my daughter on the second day
soft hiccoughs to soundly sleep
under climate control sheets
how many weeks of every day this
each glance another face with
nose slightly misplaced or
perhaps just misremembered
what forces conspire to so arrange us
what unseen fingers push
sharply notched brow
what spiders’ silks
attached to distant nodes
pulled us in these
briefly intersecting curves
my mother’s hands like her mother
(who would have loved you)
now holding you like she held me
ensconced in
kitchen counter casserole dish
steady patter in out hic in out
unperturbed by outside turning
just these small fists
shallow breaths and
millimeters between us
what have i done
to make you trust me so
what do i do to earn this
to my daughter on the third day
dawn sunlight trickles through
(or maybe evening golden?)
curtains porous muslin while
alarm stirs for fourteenth? fifteenth?
time in twice so many hours
tired and thankful
feet gently intertwining
mother and father
rise to begin again
swaddle a baptismal gown for
ritual carried out in
one hundred fifty minute intervals
wake, rise, hold, feed
wake, rise, hold, repeat
joyous work of
nimble hands and breasts
practiced and true
unearthing something buried in
piecework carving out some
lost sepulcher
monument to long dead
embodied in child new
parting kiss at last rites
bid a fast farewell
from the other room they
patiently wait for the
next expedition to
unwrap some holy relic
breakfast table
(maybe supper?)
mother and father
heaving cry so
fleeting few how
many more
chances to try
to my daughter on the fourth day
grasping tiny hominid
simian feet pressed to chest
resting thermoregulating
pieces of me
occluded once through fashion
now make sense
how did ergaster feel
dropping acheulean axe to
split flint finely fire from stone
did she know that she would
not much after
rend unholy energy from
falling fastly metal fixture
cleaving unitary one to
triune infernal heat below
who is this looks through me
reflected shop windows prepare for day
who is incident to your eyes
peering flatly from
slung dangling carefully
fontanel to face held warmly
while bounty wrapped in polymerase
rots and never dies
how did heidelbergensis feel
primate to european earth
what great urge
compelled lonely colony
did she know that she would
not much after
rob her mother to
spread her tendrils further still
waking baleful yet smiling wide
grasping glands unmade but
perfect for your size
no one taught you
instincts earned through eons of
malnourished children left to die
great event of gaseous oxidant
blue green thanatos to most but
spiracles rely on this expansive soup
dining on uncounted dead
fecund slop who
yearning to live
nearly forever
pulled this wet rock asunder
to my daughter on the fifth day
scattered architecture screaming skyward
wordlessly worming our way
past birch groves and endless warrens
what fresh eyes you have and
ears to hear the murmuring words
spoken by creatures demur and obscured
teach me what i already know but
can’t don’t won’t remember
that the robin and the caterpillar
that the squirming worm
that the primped poodle
that the wandering tern
can’t don’t won’t be
seen by eyes closed
i have been here
made my peace and compromised
sacrificed
whirling whirling
and you
unfolding unfurling
each tiny finger wrapped on mine
new muscles wefted learning
what have you opened in me
what gift you can’t comprehend
though scarcely can i
mothers and mothers
and fathers and fathers
to one another
whisper hosannas
you pass up to me
hearty handfuls
smile and noise the
soil and the asteroid
comets’ tails and solenoids
a world to be newly seen
i have been here before
you may return again
so i give you what i can but
ask that you take only
what will not weigh you down
to my daughter on the sixth day
i dreamt you spoke to me
whispered words over
evening sounds of
alveolar gasp and
shuttling bus and
mechanical whir
what would you speak to me?
speak of closing world?
death vacillating languid and fierce?
speak of promise fresh?
hope perched distant and obscured?
speak of mother’s love?
nipple doting tender and full?
then in the dream
a spring appeared
waterfall beyond
cave sequestered behind
what would we find?
hidden hydra, fangs bared?
gleaming treasure, fair and square?
stolid fortress, secret lair?
curiously into water we dove
glistening rocks beneath mottled sunlight
(as we crossed the pond)
making shapes
which we would later name for
birds we’d seen along the way
as we reached the entrance there
you moved your lips the
falling water
i could not hear
you cry, i wake
and yet
something deep beyond tugs
in the center of darkest milky way
gravitons plucking us even still
sympathetic vibrating vocal cords
musical mosaic of word unheard
what would you speak to me?
to my daughter on the seventh day
eyes frigid grey crashing blue like
warships patrol dying ocean
hair tufted hay fuzzed down like
sheep trod withering pasture
knuckles widely dance and
circle dart like
honeybees on ovary nectar
belly roundly protruding into
big world with mewing yawp
feet of platypus imaginings to
propel an egg into willing burrow
i have 27 years on you
my father has 30 on me
how long do we have together
let’s show us all we can
before we leave for now
i hope you trust those elders
who have given you reason to
trust
i hope you live these values
which have given you cause to
live
go
face a blinding light
envelop it with love
steal its heat away and
forge yourself
what we haven’t already
left for you