Puberty
1
In the bathroom to scold you, I find
an odalisque, my daughter
blurred by humidity, a moist-blind
mirror, perfumed water.
Reading in the tub you seem
overnight older and, me, I’m dumb struck,
irritation gone into steam.
2
Which recalls for me your look,
you saying ‘Dad, I’m not the Devil!’
only a day or two before.
It’s true and, me, I’m lost for words,
intimidated, still,
by a woman, neither devil nor
your daddy’s little girl.
All Times Are Local
1
Undaunting, your thousand-piece jigsaw
shows a projection of all the world
and, done, it lies still on that table
like a reconstruction —
a reconstruction of our moments
separated by left times and spaces
put together here.
2
Though not far from Greenwich now
or Brunel’s brick-arched bridge,
this gazing through your bedroom window
brings it back to mind —
the dusks on near or gone horizons
and his first Great Western
instituting railway-time.
3
So it’s about your own time too
and family resemblances
shifted by walls of chronometer dials,
each one dependent on further place-names
through transit lounge to boarding gate.
You’ve reassembled all of that
imagining returns to Sendai,
your nostalgia for Japan.