One moment we are laughing, knowing she will be born. In the next, without transition I am a dream of you remembering me in light. Not knowing what is meant next for me I follow you in our home, move through you While you shower on spring mornings, Wanting to warm you. I stand with you before mirrors, and your hair Is around me like a lifeboat, stopping nothing And I am a circle of praise around your waist. You move from room to room, still living And I flit to intercept you in each doorway-- You don't see me, or hear me. You don't touch me, or taste me. The bright morning comes and we go together to bear her. I am together, but you are alone. Then she is born, and you are together and I am alone. Though I fill all of a portal between us, Our child passes through me to greet you. She emerges from darkness as I enter it And I have not even the power to kiss her. On an altar to exceptions I enter my pleas: For love, for life, for laughter, to return Once not as streams of light beyond The wavelength of mortal eyes, For the particles of me to exist beyond your mind, That my touch might surprise you. But there is no exception for me. Unable to contain myself any longer in rooms I vibrate in the strings between stars And have become a throat of the sun. I am a dream of me in your memory, I am small stories for our daughter. Your memory narrows, and I disperse slowly And can no longer feel the rain.