Warmer water, the sun to shut its eye
like a daisy, the clouds to fall
down, petals. A softer morning.
I never get that body-feel, the lean one,
a reed on the bank of the pond
near where my father would take me
camping and drink so much I felt
alone with the water and cattails
swaying. That feeling in the chest,
my body more organic, less. The boy
in the boat with all that hair;
breakfast to be already made
and on the table; dust-free corners;
my father, who is dead now, to look up
from the bones he whittles
down to a point—
the carnival laughter
of every little girl left alone
in the woods, grown
so tall the breeze knocks her.
To be sewn into the day
with that bone needle. To be
kept by the one I keep
wanting to
stop needing.

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