From the Fishouse

I watch her differently now,
frame her smiling

in the kitchen doorway,
blow drying her hair

in the mirror; I add
a random

an image here, image
there to the invisible album

I keep of her inside me:
riding a two- wheeler,

gap of missing teeth.
Now, as she readies

herself for college,
it’s the ordinary I linger on –

her leaving, too large
for any one thing; it’s more

uniform, indiscriminate
something like fog; no

more like snow.
And I don’t see, but feel

the air, full of her
lovely falling.

Isn’t it always like this –
joy and sorrow calling

to each other
across an open field.

How strange the heart’s
equivalents –

she is leaving:
it is snowing.