My new baby coos in sleep and startles
suddenly throwing her arms out as I drag
this pencil across the page and she is
like some tropical spider just fallen
from the canopy overhead where the stars
have all disappeared completely from
the night and the sun might swoop and dive
in a crazy-eight shape for how rarely
I look up from her body that is perfect
in its sleep and in its waking which is
a difference of one gauzy inch
as her eyes flutter open and look at me
mildly amused and so this is that turning of
the page, that absolute surprise of days I am
lucky enough to recognize and nothing else
before is real anymore and here comes
the hippopotamus of my new life gingerly
taking the stairs to the front door breathing
fog on the glass and staring in at me
now with its tender yellow eyes
and here comes the magnificent silence
of knowing everything is different now
and here comes the gold arbitrary blooms
of daffodils in the yard and soon
the undertaker comes and the Periodic Table
of the grave and here is the fragile
idea of love I can hardly think of
without getting up and watching
my new baby sleep in the disordered
world that does not want us here
passing whatever comes our way
and so the muddy hippopotamus
who disagrees breaks down the door
I hung on words and hope’s most
delicate breeze blows and anything is possible.
It seems it always was.