My Daughter

Why had she come to me?
Who was her red-haired mother?
Was she cuddling in a blanket in a cold
October night beneath an orange sky?
Or was she huddling in a shell amid
the algae, amphibiously breathing,
at the bottom of an orange sea?

Why had she come to me?
I seemed to know a lot about her.
I knew she had a talent for calligraphy
and couldn’t stand the sound of people
chewing. She had an aptitude
for algebra: its wyes and exes
were alive to her. She laughed

at anything that moved. She had
a predilection for ignoble men. She liked
to tell you you were right, and then
say you were right again. She wasn’t
ever sure when to say when.
Why had she come to me? Why did
I sense her sigh – soft in the orange sky –

or underwater – meant she had
come to tell me that she was
my daughter? No way, my dear.
I’m gay, my dear. Yet still, it seemed,
her provenance was clear. My child?
Dreams at Halloween: more wistful,
strangely mild – than terrible, or wild.


 
 
 
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