June 10, 2014

9
 
If this poem were my daughter, she’d be 9 today, and I’m sure
I'd throw her a party, make a cake from scratch, scour the stores
for the right gift and the perfect card, write something funny, and another
something that would tell her how it felt to become her mother, those years
spent waiting and sleeping and wondering until at last she peeked out
from the darkness and pierced the world with her voice. That sprig of hair,
those spongy fists, my heart exploding at first glance – I would tell her about
that, too. But how do you celebrate a poem? How can you say how proud you are
of the way she knows herself, finds her legs each time, makes a dance out of silence, stirs
awake when she’s ready. How do you say, “You’re mine” when the truth is, you’re hers.