Balancing on a ledge in sunlight

hair falling slant across her face

 

Ruby-throated hummingbird addresses

pink abutilon – lanterns even in the day

 

Wings cut swiftly

the frame he made her to take pictures with,

her eyes sometimes the only way to capture

 

(I take her form, slip into it

until it is my own)

 

He drew the card of isolation, she drew

the card of loneliness – like father

like daughter – but she sinks

 

into place while he wanders. A lake

cloudy with sentiment,

and a waterfall clearly elusive. His

 

oceaning is in her, but her edges

recall once being together.

 

Sunlight moves

over the yard, over the oak tree,

hanging on the porch, the path leading.

 

She imagines how he comes home

some nights – tired, drunk,

happy.

 

In the plural always, she thinks

of him – multiple faces of being alone,

 

intertwining father with every man

who followed, casting shadows on her,

 

none as frightening

or heroic as the first.

Gladly he became

human, eventually, she became him. Even

 

as she thought she was

turning into her mother, living

 

the same tale

adapted for television,

bearing the same curse

dissected for therapy – time passed

 

the roles turned over in the sun, thighs upwards.

Those she loved were like him,

 

graspable only with eyes,

arriving and departing in one

 

breath. Unable to master letting go,

she stops keeping things. He told her

don’t touch the photograph with your fingers.