Waking with Russell - by
Whatever the difference is, it all began
the day we woke up face-to-face like lovers
and his four-day-old smile dawned on him again…
babies
Naming - by
___________ –
/
/ your name is the print
/ love has made in the world,
/
/ your body the growing home
/ your spirit has made upon…
Learning to Stand - by
On the earth a stretched second
/ you stood, balanced. Gravity
/
/ glued dolly shoes. You wore
/ the sky on your head, jauntily,
/
/ light blue paper…
Baby Hand - by
Not bones but muscular air
/ inside; why starfish spread
/ five doll small living fingers
/ with cushion button dimples
/ for knuckles. All of…
Gap Year - by
Gap Year
/ (for Mateo)
/
/ I
/ I remember your Moses basket before you were born.
/ I’d stare at the fleecy white sheet for days, weeks,
/ willing…
Trio - by
Orphean sprig! Melting baby! Warm chihuahua!
The vale of tears is powerless before you.
Whether Christ is born, or is not born, you
put paid to fate, it abdicates
under the Christmas lights.
To Andrew, Before One - by
He holds a spoon, certain of what he holds:
/ nothing more solid-certain than his spoon:
/ at clenching fist and hard thing clenched,…
A Mither’s Lilt - by
My bonnie bairn
/ My bonnie bairn
/ My bonnie bairn, there’s blessin’s in yer e’e.
/ An’ O ye hae a dainty mou’, dainty mou’,…
Observances - by
A boy row in a umman’s coatie –
/ In a man’s sark row a lassie:
/ Nor wash…
Dear Hannah… - by
Dear Hannah, Time no less than space
/ would keep us, firmly, in our place.
/ I being old and sluggish, here
/ and you, so…
Love - by
I hadn’t met his kind before.
/ His misericord face – really,
/ like a joke on his father – blurred
/ as if from years…
Flight - by
To wake into this night silence
/ when the wind has dropped
/ and everything is aftermath and dark
/
/ – this is the dream they…