When You Wake a Child
If you look long enough
her breath lifts and falls
like the wings of birds
You are frozen at the doorway
by the quiet movement
of earth each year
in shaping bones
or filling in the illegible
wrinkles on the palms
of her hands
or the sky
of her voice
Her voice tickles the leaves
like a summer wind
crossing and recrossing
the delicate paper of sea
on which the maps
of her life are spread