Angie, Leaving

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.

“Angie, Leaving” is from Talking Underwater (Wind Publications, 2007).