for my daughter
When you were young
& sick
& hadn’t yet learnt how to sleep,
I would wrap you in a woollen blanket,
lie on my slowly breaking back
& rock us both
into some semblance of a doze.
Some nights soft snow
would start to fall,
we wouldn’t sleep at all;
your baby breath
not fully functioning just yet.
Your unshakeable faith
in me,
even though I was wasted, wretched; a mere wraith,
made me afraid.
How could I make the grade?
Now, you wake before the sunrise
has lightened your beautiful eyes.
You ask if it’s morning time yet;
you’re able to forget
that sleep
that once upon a time
we never could quite get.
It’s visible
in the inches you’ve somehow grown
& the wrinkles I’m proud to call my own