“Well done,” I thought—the one night we decided
(Maybe fifteen or sixteen) to stay up all night, when that meant
Exactly and only that. Weldon lived across the pike, and we
Hiked over that afternoon to develop some itinerary.
Without it, we set off, trekking the neighborhood, backyards
And driveways (this is getting closer to the present).
There Is nothing quite as hopeful…like—imagine you’re the most important
Reindeer in a pile of stuffed animals his mom kept stacked
Decoratively in the corner. That early morning,
I had the best sleep of my life.
The flame burst quick, and swallowed the roll of what
Might as well have been a candlewick, wrapped in cloth,
And soaked in kerosene, then thrown, headlong into a bonfire.
This instead was just a newspaper (and after 9/11, no one,
I think, for a while, cared who was born or dead.
It just came every day, so they read) which, masquerading
Briefly as a tower Dante couldn’t think to climb,
Rose into the sky, then blew just as far lengthwise.
She likes it when I read the ones she can remember
Easily. I read somewhere that that comes from anxiety
Brought on by parents, and other kinds of guardians,
Framing their lives in, and focusing far too much on time,
And what it takes to do things. (I think she’ll receive the brunt
Of that limp from me). But either way, I’ll still be up at 3, so let
Me bask in my current if not momentary largesse
beneath a squishmallow and something else. (I don’t know these kid things.
I think I’m lost). I’ll ponder such atrocities tomorrow; at the moment,
She is Frog—
—and I am Toad.