I watch her differently now,
frame her smiling
in the kitchen doorway,
blow drying her hair
in the mirror; I add
a random
image here, image
there to the invisible album

I keep of her inside me:
riding a two-wheeler,
gap of missing teeth.

Now, as she readies
herself for college,
it’s the ordinary I linger on ?—

her leaving, too large
for any one thing; it’s more

uniform, indiscriminate
something like fog; no,
more like snow.
And I don’t see, but feel
the air, full of her
lovely falling.

Isn’t it always like this ?—
joy and sorrow calling
to each other
across an open field?

How strange the heart’s
equivalents ——
she is leaving:
it is snowing.

From Talking Underwater (Wind Publications, 2010)
Used with the author’s permission.