Matt Dennison is the author of Kind Surgery, from Urtica Press (Fr.) and Waiting for Better, from Main Street Rag Press. "Passing from the Light I Glimpse" was originally published in Saranac Review. It is now a part of Short Édition's series, The Current.
Originally published in Saranac Review
Passing from the light, I glimpse
my daughter in the midnight kitchen
glow, dipping ice-cream for herself
alone—the bending hand smooth
above surface perfection holds
room but no need for a dark father's
thoughts on one so sharp she must cut
the world or shutter. Don't you dare
grow sleepy with meaningless labor
so young! I long to shout as with
her hands great secrets of grief
and a grieving, not death's, but a dying
with beauty's right speed are wrung.
For when pain comes and suffering
casts its shadow in brilliant relief,
the tides of sleep will swirl the giddy
fringe of night so taken by insular
beauty's hot capture that, uplifted,
this child too shall pass.
my daughter in the midnight kitchen
glow, dipping ice-cream for herself
alone—the bending hand smooth
above surface perfection holds
room but no need for a dark father's
thoughts on one so sharp she must cut
the world or shutter. Don't you dare
grow sleepy with meaningless labor
so young! I long to shout as with
her hands great secrets of grief
and a grieving, not death's, but a dying
with beauty's right speed are wrung.
For when pain comes and suffering
casts its shadow in brilliant relief,
the tides of sleep will swirl the giddy
fringe of night so taken by insular
beauty's hot capture that, uplifted,
this child too shall pass.