(for Luca Simon Powell)
Out of the Moses basket where it rocks,
your foot appears, resolute, as if
you are stepping into air,
treading it like water.
This foot is so unused, so new the light
shines through. It does not know
what ground is, the dangerous play
as earth turns round and falls
away, the hurt of tumbling down.
It walks, unafraid, into the time
between my heartbeats. The man
whose name you wear
made room for you. He was there,
measuring the length and width of things,
one shoe in front of the other,
heel to toe, heel to toe,
foot by foot by foot. Space enough
for hills and circling arms, and for you
to map the distance of your name.
Then he left the floor to you,
to measure in your own good time,
a floor that looks like love, like air,