For Matilda starting ‘school’ at age 1

You were the new moon in one world
and I a tree
rocking you in my crooked branches.

In another, you were a lake
brimming with bright water,
I a mountain
holding you in the quiet curve of my shoulder.

But you have held me
at least as often as I you.
And both of us have been the hungry pony
to the other’s pile of hay.

Not by choice or decision,
enormous these worlds open
and we meet ourselves inside.
This is how we’re made
and in unmaking
make new worlds.

Outside on the city streets
we learned to move as a single body,
a smooth keeled tall ship
with an infant goddess leaning out from the prow,
anointing the air with her magic finger
and guiding with her gaze
drowning sailors toward the shore.

So much nearer to delight and awe
than anyone can know
unless we see it in another’s eyes
and so let go our broken vessels
and start swimming
this sidewalk sea
still warm with affection.