We’ve decided to eat like the French,
which is to say, together around a table.
We set a tablecloth. If it weren’t for the babies,
we’d light candles. If it weren’t for the babies,
this wouldn’t be a big accomplishment.
If it weren’t for the babies, tradition
would not be so important.
I cross the street when I see a college student.
I have a hard time with youth,
even though I still have one hand caught
in their experiences. In cafes, on the bus,
I carry earplugs. Their dreams,
their talk about first entering work
make static in my chest. There is
not enough room for their disappointments
or their enthusiasms in my many-self
I have grown within me.
I sit down to write a poem
and find nothing waiting
to be voiced. There is
the liquid purple sunrise
that lingers for me to wake
now that it is fall. And there are
the two sleeping babies
I have just left, one chattering
into the bars of her crib.
There is the tight flutter
in my chest I can’t name.
But all these things are
already being appreciated.
There is a couple waiting
at the crosswalk, who turn
one after the other to point
at the brilliance of the new day.
The faces of the skyscrapers
are glowing gold, for everyone,
even the ones who might prefer to be
heading the other way, home.
We all know the pattern.
This morning the poem
that rises out of me
is walking barefoot into a room
with three walls of windows,
fifteen minutes before the sun.
