Daughter

I always wanted a daughter, which is 
to say, I wanted a better self,

flicked from my marrow—made 
flesh. I wanted this bone-of-my-bones

to move in the world, exceptional 
and unharmed. Not this world. But a world

almost exactly unlike it. Same 
paved streets and street cafés, same slow

unfurl of spring. Only, in that world, 
the green of field and orchard is still wanton

with winged things, their bellies powdered 
with the flowers’ gold dust.

Daughter, I say, and I mean a list 
of what-ifs, a cacophony of sorrows.

I imagine her tall, lithe as willows. 
When I say Daughter,

I mean a match, ready to strike herself 
against the world that isn’t

this one. I mean luck. I mean a river 
empty of drowning. I mean an arrow

aimed at an unnamed star. Someone 
once said a daughter is a needle in the heart.

I would take that needle, sew her a dress 
of yarrow and blood.

In the world not this one, 
I have a daughter. She is a long braid,

a memory of fire. She goes before me, 
shining darkly, into a city—

of gold, of salt—that I will never see.