My daughter, so proud lately of her lengthening limbs
and muscles, still asks, on most evenings,
to be carried to bed, which -- amazingly, though
Long gone are the days of lifting her with ease,
as though moving one of my own limbs,
absentmindedly, up or down, gone now the special hold
I somehow stumbled upon when her wailing --
as if the entire anguish of the world had
been condensed into one elongated vowel --
simply could not be consoled, her small and fragile
body held out before me, head resting snugly
in the palm of my hand, her torso fitting perfectly
into my forearm, her flat and skinny feet,
not yet having touched upon earth
or grass, reaching out into the air, unafraid,
and we swayed that way, gently, almost imperceptibly,
upon the kitchen linoleum, until her cries
drifted slowly into coos and gurgles, and at last
into the welcome silence of sleep.
Tonight, I carry her down the narrow hallway,
turning sideways, and with little grace on my part,
dropping her into the soft familiarity of
bedsheets and blankets that bear her fragrance,
her shape still faintly visible from the night before,
where she will drift again into weightlessness,
her body building itself even when she
is seemingly gone, as the map behind her eyelids,
the one only she can read, draws her
forward, relentlessly forward.
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