we stood on the porch and you smoked

while the old man told you

about his basement full of wine,

his bad heart and the doctor’s warning,

how he held the dusty bottle out to you,

glad, he said, to give it away

to someone who appreciated

its value and spirit, the years

it took to settle into its richness

and worth. I’m watching again,

each cell alive, as you reach

for the wine, your forearm exposed

below the rolled sleeve, the fine hairs

that sweep along the muscle, glowing,

lifting a little in the afternoon breeze.

I’m memorizing the shape of the moment:

your hand and the small bones

lengthening beneath the skin

as it tightens in the gripping,

in the receiving of the gift, the exact

texture and color of your skin,

and the old man’s face, reduced

to its essence. That,

and the brief second

when both of you had a hand on the bottle —

the thing not yet given,

not yet taken, but held

between you, stoppered, full.

And my body is flooded again

with an elemental joy,

holding onto it against another day

in the unknowable future when I’m given

terrible news, some dark burden

I’ll be forced to carry. I know

this is useless, and can’t possibly work,

but I’m saving that moment, for balance.

SMALL GODS

For My Daughter Who Loves Animals

Once a week, whether the money is there

or not, I write a check for her lessons.

But today, as I waited in the car for her

to finish her chores, after she had wrapped

this one’s delicate legs, brushed burrs

and caked mud from that one’s tail,

I saw her stop and offer her body

to a horse’s itchy head. One arm up,

she gave him the whole length of her side.

And he knew the gesture, understood

the gift, stepped in close on oiled hooves

and pressed his head to her ribcage.

From hip to armpit he raked her body until,

to keep from falling, she leaned into him

full weight, her foot braced

against a tack post for balance.

Before horses, it was snakes, coiled

around her arms like African bracelets.

And before that, stray dogs, cats

of every color, even the misfits,

the abandoned and abused.

It took me so long to learn how to love,

how to give myself up and over to another.

Now I see how she has always

loved them all, snails and spiders,

from the very beginning, without fear or shame,

saw even the least of them, ants,

gnats, heard and answered

even the slightest of their calls.

Planning the Future

I never dreamed my daughter would be 16

until the day arrived with a car full of kids

and balloons, take-out Mexican food

and a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake.

A few months later and she has a boyfriend

in a baseball cap and baggy pants, two gold hoop