June 21, 2013Watching My Daughter Through the One-Way …
Maggie’s finishing a portrait
of our family, gluing googly eyes
onto a stately stick figure
I hope is me. Now she doesn’t know
who to play with, as other kids,
pockets full of posies,
all fall down. She wears my face
superimposed. I almost tap
the glass, point her toward
the boy with yellow trucks.
Lost, she stares out the window
toward the snow-humped pines
beyond the playground.
When I’m dead, I hope there’ll be a thin pane
such as this between us. I’ll stand forever
out in the dark to watch my grown children
move through their bright rooms.
Maybe just once they’ll cup
their hands against the glass, caught
by some flicker or glint,
a slant of light touching their faces.
from #38 - Winter 2012