Daughter
You are not mine.
For this span of time, let us agree:
you are my love, yes--incarnate
sprinting in high grass--yes,
my happiness and always my fear
I can no more push the world into place
than make toast without burning it.
On days when the world plays
too hard, we turn to art.
We question Picasso's
weighted line, how color defines
white,and right angles
twist women's limbs. We stare
at Rodin's heroes of Calais.
their huge starving hands,
thin bronze necks.
Their feet stuck in mud.
We talk pedestals. We talk choice.
Even a short month ago over cherry juice,
we spent the morning whispering
free speech as the eggs spattered over easy,
over done and the kitchen filled with smoke.
Beautiful stick, skimming ten years crosscurrent,
you can and cannot navigate.
My lifeline is short. Learn to swim.
You are not my canvas.
Not my blue horse, headless bull, dove.
You are not mine to frame. You are the real
cathedral. Shifting each moment in light,
you cut your own shape in the street.
Against sky,your bones stand.
I began dying the day you born
and I am so happy to pass on seconds.
I am last year's garden,
architecture for snow.
Tuck me under, love.
I am at home in soil beds, quiet
without news, without planes overhead
the cranked carnival lot downtown.
I am happy to have had my say
to as much as can be said.
I have banged my heart against steel
skin over and over again. Cell by cell,
we are animal. Tooth. Claw. Tail.
We swim the perimeter
of the bowl. We, unlike ants,
feel remorse. We hope. We act
as if we have souls--
So know this: when you were five
and your scarlet fever broke,
my god became the sweat in your bed.
My prayer, each tooth you lost
and I saved. My bible, bamboo,
the first the word you spoke.
True, half of me spirals in your throat
but you have even claimed that.
A blueprint is a blueprint; a house, a house.
Language is a level, take my only tool.
Men will hang themselves
if given too much: too much
power, privilege, lust,
too much love, mercy, faith.
In the end, I leave you nothing:
no thing--the dirt you are made of
and your own bare feet.
-Laura E. J. Moran, Live Bait, 2005