the child's hour

The days meld together like the crayons
melting on the radiator in that play.

It is 1:11 am and the shimmering cloth of memory
is threadbare, the thick down of need

settling in its place like fingers
of fog invading the bluest bay sky. I am alone

with my words and the perilous labyrinth
of self-pity. My lover sleeps thoughtlessly

3,000 miles across from me and my toes
whimper, mute bloodless slugs at the foot

of the bed. The salt-tinged wind and the doe eating petals
from the rosebush--the warmth of day

is forgot. The father's infidelity invades, murderer
of sound sleep, all angry thrusts and heaves. The mother's

sleeping pills the only gateway to peace in the moment.
And I am the lone she-wolf howling

to the moon: come nearer, be still. Here, there is only that play,
only the traces of remembrance like lifted prints

that will never be matched to anything. That play,
that thing the father did, that way the mother looked,

the numb blue the daughter saw when she washed
her hands at 1:21 am and wondered where she was going,

where she had been, why her dewless eyes were cracked and
bleeding when no tears traversed there.

In the night it is only a dream, it is a far-off nightmare
or a film and I am the spectator, I see the

daughter hiding herself in blankets, tucking
memories into folds of sheets.

There is no water here, only miles of desert,
endless stretches of drought.