Some Happiness

Baron Wormser

For Maisie

I tell my daughter about this pitfall
And that difficulty.
She listens, but it is hard
For her to be patient.
With a kiss, I dismiss her
And she dismisses me.

She is happy. I pick at that
Commonly discredited fact.
It is something I had not thought of,
That love might have this humming, incautious outcome,
That a daughter could be like the sea
In the rain, absorbing the many drops.

She is
All things that steadily, waveringly go.

I am on the shore, kicking at what I know.

There is a day without conclusions.
There is a word without weight.
There is an impulse familiar as skin.

I lay my perils down.
Childhood is a string tied
To a great, remarkable nothing.

We dance
To a music beyond misgiving.