The Vagrant Daughter

Her eggshell diary lay in sawdust amber
then ascended to rosy fingernails.
Grey-browed dawn memory
sat next to her smallest gesture.

I rest in the shadow of her wings;
she has dreamed me awake.
I batten empty windows
and tie down the flood gates.

Her milkweed hand in hourglass relief
paces the paper's consonants,
then birdsong vowels dance
on the fragile precipice.

I am the hermit son
of this vagrant daughter.
I wash my tiny face
then walk back into her sunlight.

23.March.05