Missing You at 3 a.m.

for Varity

The years before your birth
are translucent as beach glass,
bleed into the present
like colored sand shaken in a bottle.

You were always with me, your ghost
attached to my hip, some haunting
extension in a Victorian spirit photograph
as I treaded the troubled waters
of my time on earth without you.

I was always so hungry, yearning
for the stretching fit of fullness,
the lush fruition only you could provide.
I was at my best with you
flowering inside me, freed of smoke
and medications, my only ache
to rip you from my body
and cradle you to me forever.

I've watched in amusement
as you apply lurid-blue eye shadow,
and I swear you're not nine years old
but thirty, and I'm hobbled
and bent by the prospect of a man
who aches for all I squander
like water. To awaken to your face
fresh every day, the soft-white bulb
of your temple against his cheek.

He will long to bury himself inside you
as I yearn to enfold you
in a seamless embrace, mother melting
into child in a liquid dance
older than Time itself, the only cord
of strong enough fiber
to tether my soul to this world.

Oh little girl, I want you back
where you belong, in my arms.