But drinking downstairs all alone one
Friday night,
I started thinking who am I to not
baptize our daughter,
sleeping upstairs, two years old,
dreaming new identities she could
be like Lego characters
assembled thought by thought until
the ever-present inimitable magic
of one’s being is covered up
by something old and borrowed.
Every beer was turning me more blue.
And so I tip-toed up the staircase,
passing prints of Andrew Wyeth’s
artless landscapes
opening around an empty house,
until I stood above her sleeping
peaceful form,
and felt the consciousness we
shared as breathtaking love.
Then I touched my finger to my
tongue
and prayed she’d always know she is
that light of being
that had come into our
disillusioned lives
to teach us what we always are.
I placed that finger on her
forehead
feeling fourteen billion years as
building to this second.