Emily sprinkles her fingers down the glass
trace-reading the drops on the other side,
‘Look, ’ she says, simple as a god, ‘rain.’
...
9.42 and I’m banking through leaf-mould
and memories, waiting to swap weather
with my mother: she likes to check the skies
...
The paint splashed path is curved
like ancient myth, its end in view
but endlessly removed; the lolling sea
is half a mile or half a step away
...
Observation Of A Child
Emily sprinkles her fingers down the glass
trace-reading the drops on the other side,
‘Look, ’ she says, simple as a god, ‘rain.’
she cups her hand, and when it’s filled
with enough dry air, raises it, toasting.
‘Tomorrow, ’ she says, ‘it’ll be fine.
Somewhere it’s a birthday.’ She sparkles
her fingers against the spectring rain
one more time. ‘I’m one, two, free! ’
She turns, shimmies like a rock pool,
delighted with her first pun, stretches
her arms, palms up-turned, precise now
as a revelation: ‘Look, , look, look,
there’s more! ’ she makes fins of her fingers,
moves waves from her face. ‘There’s everything, ’
she says. And as she dives off,
into it all, I remember to suspect
she’s right.