first poem for caylie

I hold her for the first time

and she cries
I'm scared
of making something
so miserable
just by holding it close
so I give her to her father
my brother

dark hair on big arms
handsome man
stares
a familiar air here
she stares up
silent, so sudden
while the room holds its breath
watching

she's always drifting
through a dream
a light just past her eyes
hardly further than her fingertips
mornings, afternoons
passing rains drip the leaves
skies of stars forget ground
this blooms like age
on the quiet lamb's ribcage
dreams soft as mother
her grace
voice of everything

in the room moves her acceptance
of all the brevity in strangers
who forget so quickly how to talk
to each other
she's asleep through the world
that shakes us

so when my father first saw her
it's said he cried hard
couldn't stand near her
the steadiness of heart under thin skin
palmed his knees to storm-warning weak
in hush tones
oh my god
oh my god
I'd forgotten
oh my god
chin shaking
he saw all his life's happiness
in her
put his thick hands to his face
before he could touch her

the whiteness of skin and new bones
made beauty seem small
to him again
habit women may be sweet hipped
but in poetics and voice of inherence
his chest curls proud at her shelter
made in his lumber arms
warmth under the weather
in his face
embarrassed smile
so he forgets rain on his toque
shuts door of car parked outside
still with tears on his shirt sleeve

like me

so sleepy in my old footsteps
I don't find time to give my brother
even a pat on the back
I'm outside his door
he tells me
it was good to see you
I say
yeah

and driving home
at night
I think of what makes
simple hearted love
so heavy

there is rain
on the windshield

I see
some of the highway
blurred in the headlights
but it all passes
so quickly
disappears
becoming dark outlines
of ghosts
behind me