Did I Show You, Love, the Moon Last Night?

Photo from Etsy

I haven’t stopped writing
for four days
then
a moment,
in its glass jar, holds a voice
that calls me–mommy? mommy?
and my breath is held–
did I forget
to show her the moon last night?
To show her the silence of the snow outside?
–so slow and pretty–
or the maps that the stars make?
did I answer her–Yes, my love,
I’ll live a long time–
I watch through glass–
her tiny silhouette among her quiet dolls;
I want to tell her
how time, like water, can slip through your fingers,
how sometimes we forget to look,
how days can pass like a sleep.
I take her to my desk
and teach her how to write
a poem, and she writes
one for me–I love my mommy–
and for a moment I’m pricked
with a fact–
one day, she might stop asking for me.