"DADDY...GONE!"

Too little to know
where father goes when he goes

out the door
his smile left hanging there

an after image
of him.

I touch the air
where he has been

wondering what's become
of him...believing

he has become the sky
the passing clouds

a bird that flies
a cat's meow.

He is now
all things

of what a world
is made.

I stare at the air
willing him to be the shape

I love him in
my big man

who scoops me up
the scratchy kisses of his chin.

He has been translated
into a language of absence

that yet
contains him

decanted from all he was
into whatever I happen to see

whatever he be
a tiny universe of dustmotes

held in a sunbeam's
hand.

And then the coming of a time
when he becomes mine

his smile that I trace
with my fingertip

this the ordinary
miracle of his love.