You spin your cardboard doggie book
in slow circles while you scrutinise
The covers, front and back.
You puzzle over it like it was
some ancient relic
whose meaning,
if only you could learn it
might explain it all.
You say
DAWW GE!
Language still so new,
molded like earthenware into
rudimentary shapes.
A small but growing
library of sounds
that you've attached specific,
and not so specific,
meanings to.
I am Ah-da or Da or,
my personal favorite,
Da-ee.
Your mother is Bah.
Hey-o, Bah!
I notice the pale blue lattice
of veins, visible from under your skin,
that descend from your palm
toward the elbow and points beyond.
My god, you are a human,
little for sure,
but whole and complete.
A little person.
Made from a little of the
person I love and,
impossibly,
from a little of me.