Sir, if you love me, hold me to life
as to a promise,
provide for my ramshackle age.
Never will I be gibbous like the moon,
childfull and eager
all the tot-centered day.
Though I conjure pelicans
out of ice-tinged barbwire,
or lathe heaven into a shrinkproof hour,
others know by instinct
what I never learned:
how to crochet raggedy minutes into spells,
spells into days.
Sir, if you love me, teach me to collect
my galloping hopes;
how to jam work’s merciful fabric
into each hollow of a routine month;
how to greet life
blazing like the pillars of Troy
and not char to rubble, not turn sour;
how to trot out and lunge the stabled heart
on riderless calms
in the deathwatch of winter.
Sir, if you love me, teach me to thrive
without you,
to be my own genesis.