To My Daughter

Of a vine that's snaking down the wall

in a trendy eating place, "Watch the plant don't

eat your head." Of summer asphalt, "atoms

are dancing to the sun." Of a flighty friend,

"She only lives for a minute at a time."

Of her brother, my son, "The skate board's passing by."

Of an insect on the floor, "A species is

regarding us, " The special language we,

my daughter and I, employ to recognize

our bond, a little surreal, a sheen of science,

a pinch of menace. Neither could find it with another if we tried.

We hear we are each other.

Another with my wife, another with

my friends who write, phrases that remind

us of ourselves, a way of choosing words

that shares some thread within a knot of lives.

These bind, these are love, these are who we are.

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