How is she nearly five
And losing a tooth?
It was only yesterday that the first one peeked through,
Surely?
How is she painting such exquisite, thoughtful pictures,
When last week we cooed over scribbles
And helped her hold the pen?
And she's learning to read, and when we bake cakes
She decorates them so carefully, and they're better than mine.
She's choosing her own clothes, and putting them all on,
And helping baby sister into hers.
She's challenging me, questioning me,
And though I'm so proud, every "why" scares me half to death,
Because she's no longer my baby,
She's finding and claiming and asserting her self.
She will be five, and there's a lump in my throat,
at the multicoloured candles on the cake,
So many...too many...
Too old, too soon.

The best thing about parties
Is the dancing.
I would like to dance right from the start,
But no-one else is ready,
So I wait for the ***** and bonhomie to kick in,
And then I start it off with a giggle and a wiggle,
And soon everyone's gyrating, sweating, laughing, into it.
Nothing makes me feel more alive,
More in the moment.
More truly myself.
I'm an outrageous exhibitionist,
But it isn't even that -
It's the beat, the truth, the tune, the words,
Leading to the movement,
It's pure interpretation, clear communication,
The essence of party,
The absence of sad.

Sometimes I look at
the sky & wonder
how much bluer
it could get, & just
when I think that
there is no limit,
the sky turns on me
& asks me, "how
blue can you get?"
& then I realize that
the scariest part of
me is that I just don't
know where the



























bottom is.

"Something along those lines, yes."
& that's just it, that's what I am--
something that can never quite walk the line;
shy-girl, watching-girl,
always-on-the-tip-of-my-tongue-girl,
dancing around the main idea,
the true center of the words.
I am along the lines,
between the notes,
& you are the greatest symphony.