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The night before she goes back to college
she goes through my sweater drawer, to see
what she likes, so when she leaves she is wearing
black wool with fuchsia creatures
knitted in, elk branched across her
chest, lamb on her stomach, cat,
ostrich. Eighteen, she’s gleaming with a dry
gleam, shadow of the glisten of her birth
when she took off my body, thick coat
for the long journey. In the window of the elevator
door, I can see her amber half-profile, the
strong curves of her face, like the harvest
moon. She sets. Hum and creak of her
descent, the backstage cranking of the solar system,
the light of the car goes down like a small
calm world. Eighteen years
I have been a mother! I love being past it —
resting, watching our girl bloom.
She is probably on the train now, in her dress
like a zodiac, her body covered with the
animals that carried us in their
bodies for a thousand centuries
of sex and death, until flesh knew itself, and spoke.
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