We want to remember
our dead, make an altar,
bring our daughter
to the photograph trace a chin
here, for good luck, palm
her grandmother’s hair,
she doesn’t know
who she is yet (trick
or treat?)
how can she dress up
like a lion, doctor, fish,
be stitches
in the middle of my book
sunset reflecting off windows
Texas will teach her
seasons: dried
leaves under the table,
new green on the treetops
a dirty car backfires
in the crosswalk, a nest
hangs from the porch light
fixture, I want to hold her
in the center,
cup her breath
in my hands, balance
her heart on my knees
the Dow grabs blindly,
knocks things off
Susan Briante is the author of Pioneers in the Study of Motion, Utopia Minus, and the chapbook The Market Is a Parasite That Looks Like a Nest, part of an ongoing lyric investigation of the stock market.
