This Child, These Tests, These Beginnings

Zoë arrives carrying roses – red

yellow, & pink – burdens that nearly smother

this child – pouting lips, downcast head –

whose shy is sham that lets her test the water.

Zoë wants to plumb all of it, details

large & small, self & Zoë propelled –

dung beetles & rosy stones, balls

of styrofoam pried up by her fingernails, 

a steep slope to the empty pond, a stake 

to pull her body up by, a pile of sand,

small sticks she orders to stand, sticks 

that test her theories of this non-mother land

ruled solely by physics, including her hold

on me as she tightrope-walks my world.