A soft-edged light beneath my daughter’s door.
It was the night-light plugged in by her bed.
And I remembered when she was a baby,
How often I would get up in the night
And creep into that room to watch her sleep.
I never told my wife how many times
I came to check each night — or that I was
Always afraid of what I might discover.
I felt so helpless standing by her crib,
Watching the quiet motions of her breath
In the half-darkness of the faint night-light.
How delicate this vessel in our care,
This gentle soul we summoned to the world,
A life we treasured but could not protect.
This was the terror I could not confess—
Not even to my wife — and it was the joy
My daughter had no words to understand.
So standing at my pointless watch each night
In the bare nursery we had improvised,
I learned the loneliness that we call love.
IV.
But I gave up those vigils years ago.
My daughter’s seven now, and I don’t worry—
At least no more than any father does.
But waking up last night after the dream,
Trembling in the hall, looking at her door,
I let myself be drawn into her room.
She was asleep — the blankets softly rising
And falling with each breath, the faint light tracing
The sleek unfoldings of her long black hair.
Then suddenly I felt myself go numb.
And though you won’t believe that an accountant
Can have a vision, I will tell you mine.
Each of us thinks our own child beautiful,
But watching her and marveling at the sheer
Smoothness of skin without a scar or blemish,
I saw beyond my daughter to all children,
And, though elated, still I felt confused
Because I wondered why I never sensed
That thrill of joy when looking at adults
No matter how refined or beautiful,
Why lust or envy always intervened.
There is no tabula rasa for the soul.
Each spirit, be it infant, bird or flower,
Comes to the world perfected and complete,
And only time proves its unraveling.
But I’m digressing from my point, my vision.
What I meant to say is merely this:
What if completion comes only in beginnings?
The naked tree exploding into flower?
And all our prim assumptions about time
Prove wrong? What if we cannot read the future
Because our destiny moves back in time,
And only memory speaks prophetically?
We long for immortality, a soul
To rise up flaming from the body’s dust.
I know that it exists. I felt it there,
Perfect and eternal in the way
That only numbers are, intangible but real,
Infinitely divisible yet whole.
But we do not possess it in ourselves.
We die, and it abides, and we are one
With all our ancestors, while it divides
Over and over, common to us all,
The ancient face returning in the child,
The distant arms embracing us, the salt
Of our blind origins filling our veins.
I stood confused beside my daughter’s bed
Surprised to find the room around me dim.
Then glancing at the bookshelf in the corner,
I saw she’d lined her dolls up in a row.
Three little girls were sitting in the dark.
Their sharp glass eyes surveyed me with contempt.
They recognized me only as a rival,
The one whose world would keep no place for them.
I felt like holding them tight in my arms,
Promising I would never let them go,
But they would trust no promises of mine.
I feared that if I touched one, it would scream.
HOMECOMING
I.
I watched your headlights coming up the drive
and thought, “Thank God, it’s over.” Do you know
I waited up all night for you — with only
the bugs for company? I tried to watch them
beating their wings against the windowpanes
but only saw my own face staring back,
blurry and bodiless against the black.
Mostly I passed the time remembering
what it was like to grow up in this house.
This little parlor hasn’t changed a bit
in twenty years. Those china figurines
along the mantelpiece, the ivory fan,
the green silk pillows puffed up on the couch
were sitting in exactly the same place
when I first came. And that pathetic print
of Jesus smiling by the telephone—
even the music in the piano stool.
These things should have been thrown away by now
or put up in the attic and forgotten.
But you aren’t interested in family heirlooms.
The only reason that you’re here is me.
I won’t resist. I’m ready to go back.
Tomorrow you’ll be heroes in the paper—
KILLER NABBED AT FOSTER MOTHER’S HOME.
But first look in the kitchen. No need to rush.
II.
She raised me, but she wasn’t family.
I don’t know how she first got custody,
except that no one really wanted me.
My father disappeared when I was three.
I don’t remember him. A few years later
my mother took off, too. After she left
I saw her only once — by accident—
at the State Fair one Sunday afternoon
when I was twelve. I went without permission.
I should have been attending Bible School
to find salvation over milk and cookies,
but I had sneaked away. I couldn’t stand
another dreary day of Jesus. I knew
there would be hell to pay when I got home.
Still I was happy, wandering through the booths,
drunk with the noise, the music, and the rides,
not feeling lonely anymore but merged
into the joyful crowds who didn’t care
that it was Sunday. Moving in their midst,
for once I felt I wasn’t different,
that we all shared a common world of grace
where simple daylight poured down happiness.
Then suddenly I saw her at a booth—
my mother — talking to some man, and she
was holding a stuffed animal they’d won,
chatting with it in the sort of baby talk
that lovers use. At first I wasn’t sure
if it was her. I started to call out.
She noticed then that I was watching her.
And for an instant we stood face to face.
I knew from pictures it was her. And she
paused for a moment, staring absently.
A puzzled look, a moment’s hesitation,
and then she winked at me — the intimacy
of strangers at a summer fair — and smiled
without the slightest trace of recognition.
I turned and ran the whole way home.
That evening when the old bitch paddled me
for missing church, for once I didn’t mind.
III.
God didn’t care. He saw where I belonged.
She told me years ago how everyone
would either go to Heaven or to Hell.
God knew it all, and nothing you could do
would make a difference. I asked her how
a person knew where he was chosen for.
She said, “A person always knows inside.”
She asked me suddenly — for the first time—
if I were saved. I couldn’t give an answer.
“Look in your heart,” she told me. “Look for Jesus.”