Where are my children? They’re
falling like leaves and the ones
I didn’t have are hid in the magic
cabinet I leave bolted to a wall
full of all my most enduring and
protected spells; tucked neatly into
a pair of tiny moccasins stood on
the business card of a woman named
Piya who dangled an oracle over my
palm in a curios shop on Queen St
West and told me I would have
just one more– that it would be
daughter and to “Bring her to
see me,” when she is born.
I don’t believe in Piya but I
still see the little girl with strange
pale eyes rimmed by a thin dark
line and curled and dusky lashes;
a shocking head of hair that waves
like a hand on parade stuck looking
at me with the same stalwart face
the others had at that lost and
precious age where they have just
begun to realize their thoughts are
private and it dawns on them that
this means mine are private, too–
the gap that opens there between us
never closes and we both live to
rue that day and wish it
banished.
(You shine on me with the warmth
of a thousand suns; with your
bizarre conundrums and
a torrent
of words).
