May 7th, 2010
When the last bubbles of my first bubble bath,
The one you ran for me that first Mother’s Day,
Fizzled to a microscopic film of methylchloroisothiazolinone,
You came in to check on me and, I suppose,
To enjoy that I was naked and beginning to take shape again.
I said, “Look how the index of refraction is different!
Look at all the angels I can call with my hands.”
And I obstructed transverse waves with fingertip ripples,
And remade and displayed what I'd started alone.
You begrudged me those wiggles resplendent.
To you, I was not a conjurer making magic.
To you, I was not an artist bending light.
To you, I was not even a lovely whimsy-splashing girl.
I was 6 o’clock tenderness. More indulgent than annoying,
And the very good mother of what whimsy you wanted.
I knew then that there was you, and there was me,
And we would do fine in the felicific calculus,
Just a microscopic film scumming between.
The one you ran for me that first Mother’s Day,
Fizzled to a microscopic film of methylchloroisothiazolinone,
You came in to check on me and, I suppose,
To enjoy that I was naked and beginning to take shape again.
I said, “Look how the index of refraction is different!
Look at all the angels I can call with my hands.”
And I obstructed transverse waves with fingertip ripples,
And remade and displayed what I'd started alone.
You begrudged me those wiggles resplendent.
To you, I was not a conjurer making magic.
To you, I was not an artist bending light.
To you, I was not even a lovely whimsy-splashing girl.
I was 6 o’clock tenderness. More indulgent than annoying,
And the very good mother of what whimsy you wanted.
I knew then that there was you, and there was me,
And we would do fine in the felicific calculus,
Just a microscopic film scumming between.