My Lovely Girl*

You are not a stringbean.
I cannot eat you, yet.
Nor an illusion. Or me, but smaller.
You are your own star. Shining. Never
falling. Hands thrown up in the air, yelling, rollercoaster glee.

It's true I was a magical mother, (I
saw your heart, open and close, light against
darkness. Blood and tongue and teeth. Smiling already).
A message, a language, even then.

sono: sound gram: to write.
Your letter to the world; we hear it in light.

They say they don't seek out
(for girls versus boys)
a lack, an empty spot.
Castrated boy equals female.
But a line, a presence of lineage.
A string. Going back.

(Oh how Freud would tremble to know this.)

You are not a moon. Nor
darkness but your own sun.

You quirk your mouth sideways in a smile.

Reaching wide, dancing the world into being
and scaling walls I
never could have dreamed.

There are no lies yet to tell.

And you will find your way there
line or lack.

************************

(For Maia, at three. Future Fourth Waver.)
*Inspired, in part, by Anne Sexton's "My Stringbean, My Lovely Woman." Also refers to my older poem about seeing a sonogram picture, which is available online here.