Agree with me the rumble of a subway coming in
can be a baby, and the first note in the hush
of a concert hall, the bright name of a baby.
Walking to the bathroom at night, seeing
floorboards rise, this, of course, is a baby, and the sound
of pool balls breaking up pool balls? Like locks down the hall
clicking, one after another, into place? Baby, baby. Babies themselves
are not babies, not their carriages, their clinging
infant fingers, but that they often surface,
creaturely, into my dreams? Four horses gathered
in a window and then, on the counter, a sudden baby?
It’s true. Just this morning, walking with Nell, we saw a horse
standing in a pasture, flicking away flies. I clucked, clucked,
held out my hand and I called here, Baby.
