Letter to my Daughter
There are some true things
you can only speak
into the wind
and hope no one hears
until you are long gone.
Because it would cost too much
to own them,
and even more not to
say them at all.
There are other true things
that can't be said
until you are close enough
to breathe them on his forehead,
still moist with unction
or streaked with ash.
They can rest there,
not held,
but safe and known,
until their time comes.
The truest true things
aren't really true until you scoop
their sweet roundness
into that tilting blue bowl
you threw last summer,
and feast across the table
with separate spoons.
We won't even talk about deceptions,
not even the ones that taste as soft
as the truth
or are feathery enough to ride
the current of air,
almost as if they were never spoken.
They are covetous.
And, believe me,
you don't want to be
an owned woman.
