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poetry
Six
Poems for my Daughter
By
MICHAEL LARRAIN
Peace
for Wilder Kathleen
God falls asleep in your
sleep
and dreams the day that
got away
This is how planets flirt
with one another
Here we call it spring
and live on the edge
of the slowest exaltation
The sun comes out
when the dead check their
mail
and a petal torn in half
leaves a white line
where the sea used to be
You may feel for a moment
as silvery-green
as a freshly watered plant
and then so tired and so
clean
that you can touch
whatever you imagine
Now there's only one
heartbeat
between any two stars
Peace
Skip
To Ma Loo, My Darling
for
Wilder Kathleen
When you are especially
sad
you know what I mean
the times of deep sorrow
visiting you
nothing clinical or
jargon-riddled
but plain old bluesy
because everything
is waving goodbye so
slowly it's as though
the wind in the trees has
your number
please remember you are
nearer to me than my own
heart
and when my head has
exploded
from too much of whatever
I should have known better
than
to have done instead of
swinging
you up onto my shoulders
we will not stop being
together
we'll be old starlight
the quietest wild laughter
ever
Better
Still
for Wilder Kathleen, in
autumn
The world is a very
confusing shirt
We wear it
when we don't know
what else to wear
Misbuttoning rivers with
eyebrows
candle-light with
cross-country drives
One arm-hole's an escape
route
God cannot even breathe
out of the other
But there's plenty of
Heaven to go around
as close as the smells
from the kitchen
The stars are making out
in old cars
You can foretell the
future
after dreaming in black
and white
and if your write your
name
in the steam from your
bath
falling leaves will
uncouple
our paths from our
pursuers
Better still
was the first time
you toddled up to me and
said
How ya doin', daddy?
and I came truer than the
arrow
hurrying toward my throat
in the dark
Better
Still
for Wilder Kathleen, in
autumn
The world is a very
confusing shirt
We wear it
when we don't know
what else to wear
Misbuttoning rivers with
eyebrows
candle-light with
cross-country drives
One arm-hole's an escape
route
God cannot even breathe
out of the other
But there's plenty of
Heaven to go around
as close as the smells
from the kitchen
The stars are making out
in old cars
You can foretell the
future
after dreaming in black
and white
and if your write your
name
in the steam from your
bath
falling leaves will
uncouple
our paths from our
pursuers
Better still
was the first time
you toddled up to me and
said
How ya doin', daddy?
and I came truer than the
arrow
hurrying toward my throat
in the dark
Stories
for Wilder Kathleen
My hands are so old these
days
older than my own father's
hands
older and wiser than the
eyes
of god's bartender
But my hands have touched
your mother's face
cradled her sweet waist
and rubbed her feet at
night
So they have stories to
tell
When memories are all
that's left
my hands will be a land of
plenty
Holding her
I've grown secretly
engaged
to all the objects in my
sleep
I can stop without
stopping
I can even banish absence
if I wish
And now there's you
whose long elegant fingers
already fluent in
adventure
fasten onto the world with
care
So many things to be
picked up
and the delicate business
of setting them down
before you can leap out at
me
from cupboards and
bedclothes
screaming with such savage
joy
I have to raise you toward
the sky
My hands are so new these
days
Some
Detectives
for Wilder Kathleen,
watching Martin Scorsese's Shine a Light
Your mother came to me
with the lingeringest
of lips
Half-thoughtful and
half-wild
A girl who liked to tango
with the tides
When she awakened she
remembered almost everything
The slow velvet lingerie
of moss
pleasuring the branches of
a tree
The giggle of water when a
fish goes by
Wine putting roots down in
music
But there was a single
blind spot in her sleep
She didn't know where to
find you
She let me stay close to
her
as long as I agreed to
help her look
Actually
I thought she was helping
me
I too had been seeking you
ever since my earliest
days
Seen your face reflected
in a raindrop
on a petal but when I
looked again
the depths of a rose
returned the world to me
dazzling but impoverished
Heard your voice but
couldn't get that station back
though I twirled the dial
until it broke off in my fingers
Neither of us dared leave
the other alone
for fear they would
discover you and vanish
So we kept each other
within arm's reach
Dancing and searching the
dark places
We developed elaborate
codes
Fell in with criminals
Followed the instructions
of train smoke
Arranged rendezvous at the
crossroads
We stole the identities of
our own dice
after rubbing them against
ancient movie stars for luck
We looked beyond life and
outside of time
Life was of no consequence
except as a place to play
But a map whose folds are
in two worlds at once
can be hard to read
There were quarrels
between us, wars, ambushes, double-crosses, dog-fights
We kept dancing
Sometimes
when our leads had dried
up
and our hunches got us
nowhere
I'd get tired of looking
Your features had grown
indistinct
I could barely make them
out in a turning leaf
Your voice
threaded through the surf
I mistook for summer
lightning
But your mother always
knew
you were headed our way
Nearer each day the
farther
she opened her hope of you
A terrifying hope that
scalded my eyes
A hope I could not hope to
equal
Looking was how she waited
I see that now
It's better when you move
and dancing was her way of
saying
The darkness is made of
singers
who cannot tell water
from love
So your mother danced
indefatigably
and I held on for dear
life
By now
the day we found you was
years ago
And watching you dance
in front of the television
to the Rolling Stones
it finally occurs to me
that you were always
dancing with us
Waiting and looking in two
worlds at once
I saw your mother make
these steps
and thought she was
whiling away the time
But the two of you were
whiling it into being
Some detectives we turned
out to be
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