for my granddaughter Mikaila
Hard-sewn, soft-belly, huff, hip swing,
teeny woman catapult, dings in the walls
of your body. I know your scars, badges
earned in the grave pursuit of science—
jump rope whips along a curve of calf,
toes stubbed purple, tender uncolored
patches of skin woven shut over your
small traumas. Wily dervish, you flip,
hurtle, fly, daily rattle your soft spine,
send your bones to the wailing places.
This is play in the age of Grandma, who
knocked those buildings down? This is
8 years old in the age of could-die-soon.
This is life as collision and scrape, hard
lessons in the poetics of risk. Daring
the world to harm us, you pull hard
on my hand. Grandma, let’s run! We laugh
and trip as the sidewalk sniffs our skin
and stars along our path flame shut.
Die fast, die slow, die giggling, die anyway.
Our speed tempts the Reaper as I shelter
you in this first death, the loss of our throats.