Western Union announces the birth of our daughter
29 years too late
But we're ecstatic anyway
Having finally left the sea
For desert shores
Where sun reports the afterbirth
To infinity,
Our carcass heaps
Happy as a dream
And still in a way that can only be
If each lives inside the other
Completely.
It has been a long day
Of striped harlequin watching
And compliment fishing
With the denizens of Purple Town
Who huddle now like we once did at bonfires
And make babies like balloons
To scream into indifferent skies
The glee of their disquiet ...
But that was many years ago.
Our cold hands never really touched,
Our eyes never locked despite
How much our fingers shook
And pushed whatever bilge came up
Back down.
The sun just glazed the rinse repeating days
With radiance for tears
That never seemed to end
And never really appeared.
What is left of what never happened
Is in what did:
A father's love, earth placed here
To contain it,
So he can be the one who climbs the cross
Like crows the sunrise for love.
