Daughtering

I should not fault you for adorning

my paperwork –

scene of daisies, fairies and a moon with eyes

brightening a contract,

edits to a novel palimpsested by purple hearts,

phonetic verses about your friends, a six-year-old codex

of the world as you see it –

nor should I correct you when you scold

your younger siblings in my telling-off voice,

when you pinch my clothes and shoes, echo my laugh,

walk with my sway –

my first-born child, as I write

the contours of motherhood on the pages of your days

so you print upon the world with borrowed ink.

How deftly you tell my many weathers, human barometer.

How my mother’s words fall out of my mouth

and then from yours, the females of our lineage

matroyshka bells, love’s echo chamber.

Melody, this one life sways on the stem

of your glitter pen. Each of my words, each act

a signature of so many ripples.