ISSUE: Spring 2022
My daughter learns I’m there
even when I am not. I name this trust,
and I begin to exist
in her as she began
to exist in me
before I saw her.
You were thirty-three, your father and
my mother twins, our cells
drawn to face one another,
as the image of the vase:
two straying lines,
figure-and-ground.
It is joy to be hidden,
said Winnicott,
but disaster
not to be found.
One line erased, the vase
disappears, the face
that still sees sees a field: empty
and full of grasses,
a drawing of nothing,
of everything, undivided: The only story
of permanence I believe.
I name it trust.
But grammar
is deep—I Love
wants You,
my cells, their twins,
your heart,
the vase,
your missing face
I’m still breathing toward,
still drawing. Close,
each time I look.
