Uploaded on March 15, 2012

You are letting her go
from you slowly
so gently she hardly
knows.
She unties you like
an apron,
puts you on again.
Watching her grow
is catching yourself
after years, hearing
your own voice.

In sunlight
she returns to you
from her swim
to be dried.
Little fish.
You remember the bowl
of your womb, the ocean
that held her where
you felt her swim.

You are letting her out
now, loosening
like a kite’s string
seeing her for the first
time in her own orbit
in the drive, cycling.

—Catherine Twomey
Ireland in Poetry
edited by Charles Sullivan


03.15.2024: It’s nice to rediscover some of these poems.