For Lack of a Dictionary

If I Am

If I Am Six

If I am six years old

I know the days are longest in summer,

that night expands in winter

like ink on wet paper, that darkness leaks

and is said to contain evil.

At six years old, the relativity of time consists

in summer’s latelight, the long tri-tone song of crickets.

If I am six years old, the bull rushes are measured

by me. I know the blue heron has two legs, but not

that two dragonflies, attached and arched

in awkward flight, are suffering a need

which I have not yet called desire,

only that flight is dangerous at the best of times.

A mosquito whines and stops whining.

I have learned to wait for this absence of sound

before slapping.

If I am six years old, I wait

in patience

attend the dark and dewcool,

listen for the sound of leaf unfurling, the stalk bending,

eyelashes brushing against each other as my heart thuds

like the windshield wipers on Daddy’s car.

Already I know the pleasure of survival, the thrill

of lasting longer than everything else.

Now: in the greenlight,

above still water,

a movement:

leaf descending, stem arching as though to break.

The tree frog

launches itself horizontal

and my hand stabs the air.

Even before beginning its descent

in hunger

my hand

flung like a bullet

finds its mark, clasps desperately

not knowing that clasping is a gesture

of desire

or affection

or grief,

as when a lover has left

or a child has died, unfairly.

Awful this sensation: heart of another beating

in my own hand, tiny but sharp, striking palm

as though my flesh enclosed it, was second skin,

my hand a cage of ribs.

Horrible too, this cessation,

this breaking of a heart

in my own hand

and the quiet of it.

If I Am Seven

If I am seven years old

my father and I are sitting

on the balcony,

closest to roof-top without danger,

and I am under his great arm

following the finger not broken

to the loyalist star in the universe —

Sirius: at the heel, under sword.

This is the place where

once (then)

ancient people mapped themselves

ideal, and found familiars

to stave off the humiliation

of a sky unresponsive

and so much larger than any empire.

My father tells me that light comes

from afar and takes time