Recurrent Child
By Alyce Wilson

Sometimes she rises
gurgling, out of black capillary clouds,
and sometimes her clay feet
dance a cakewalk on the linoleum.

In crumbling night-time corridors
she wanders, pink as a wriggling bow.
The baby plucks
at frayed wallpaper. Her face
a gargoyle on the gloomy arches.
Left alone she will destroy my gothic
terrors. Window frames
wind around her fat finger.
She teaches my ghosts to chant.

Alone she will form stars,
hang their embryonic loves from the ceiling.
Dust smoothes her under-small
hand. She extends to me
delicate benediction, and Christ-like, bursts.

Dark-haired, she knows
ashes. Her eyes of rock candy, and her lips
unimagined. Once I lifted her from unpacked earth;
she strengthened in the sun.