Some mornings she clings to my leg
her cheek against my knee, eyes averted
and we walk together, crab-like, toward the gate.
In the distance, yells and whoops, metal clanging.
I peel her from me and slip free,
walk backwards down the path, waving,
my leaden heart forced to harden into steel.
She grips the fence, fingers laced through the mesh,
and stares me away.
Other days she leads me, pulling my hands,
a darting tug towing its sluggish barge.
On such days there is no hug, no desperate embrace,
no lonely gaze;
she turns deliberately, her back straight,
and will not acknowledge my good-byes.
From a distance, I watch her wander the periphery
moving at the edge of frantic motion
of children colliding, separating, regrouping,
random atoms in a scientist's box,
until she, too, is attracted by their gravity
stars revolving into constellations, planets orbiting their suns.
So I see her drift away
my pinprick in the galaxy:
to shield her heart from being left
she chooses to leave me.
3/21/96