The radio is a mute tortoise, and beneath
our perception the thousand things it’d say
drum like impatient fingers on the window,
as each car on the street pushes a killing space
ahead of it. Now it’s a world with my daughter
in it, and nothing matters more to me. Last night
I balanced a book on my head at dinner
because it made her beam. Electricity hides
in the walls, wanting to stop our hearts.
But in a shell of safety she puts Superman
in a pink toy stroller and wheels him away,
all muscled patience. Soon enough, this will be
the forgotten soft loam of early childhood,
below the floorboards of her memory. Already,
the world I remember has been replaced:
people sit quietly together stroking devices
as though putting a curl of hair behind an ear,
even as the stars above, slowly turning screws,
will bring her a new life, and another one.