my daughter sits nervously
at the table, her face flush,
the color of my hunger for
her absent mother.

a slice of sunlight through the
window collects on her plate,
refracts history into a dark corner
where she remembers what
it meant to be tethered to a
womb, to be two hymns sung
in one breath.

water takes the shape of
whatever holds it; lucille will
one day be a mother, giving
birth to the sea. no vessel could
contain a love for her child not
yet born, even now.

she understands death as
pageantry. if we bury the poems,
the words will sleep, every stanza
a clod of dirt shoveled back
into a sobbing earth.

after dinner, we pick apples
by the creek. here, now, is
all that we have, all that there
is. we live while we can,
between the orchards and
birches, watching silver water
flow onward, toward somewhere
and something more meaningful,
inexplicably beautiful.