Page I
hello sweetheart.
here is your nursery rhyme,
some victorian shoes.
first there's one
then the other will drop-
how shocking the weight.
it's the same as the shape of an alphabet block
like my voice,
which could never fit your small throat.
never suit something darling as you.
so we remain different sizes, you and i.
what i'm saying is i've been around for a very long time.
and for me the chasm has opened wide.
yes, more than once.
you wouldn't remember,
but you were there.
back facing it all and unaware,
right before i fell in.
when i met you,
you were sixteen months old.
you were three.
i constantly wondered how something as tiny as you
could hold to a red mark like me.
Page II
when you met me i was fifteen.
i was twenty-one.
i was twenty-three.
razor on my tongue and waiting for sleep, oh honey
i still wonder
how could something as
fragile as you
block something as heavy as me.
hello sweetheart.
with mica knives in my side
you kept me breathing.
here my dear, let me hold them again.
let's never mind that they
find how twin-like were seeming.
you bring out the best parts of me
and i give them freely.
