There are girl things on the floor:
black hairbrush, ribbons, plastic glitter
and socks.

Don’t touch a thing.
There is nothing you need to put away.
There is no such place as “away” to put things.

How perfectly your living daughters
have left evidence of their abundance.
Turn and go to them.

Do not disturb this scene they have created.
It is the beginning of the painting
in which they will show you who you are.

__________________________________________________________

Previously published in The Pocket Poetry Parenting Guide, Pudding House, 2000 __________________________________________________________

Rasma Haidri grew up in the U.S. and currently makes her home on the Norwegian arctic seacoast where she teaches American and British studies. Her writing has appeared in literary journals including Nimrod, Prairie Schooner, Fourth Genre, Ice Floe and Kalliope, and been widely anthologized. She won the 2005 Southern Women Writer’s emerging writer award in creative non-fiction and the 2005 Mandy Poetry Prize.
E-mail: razma at online dot no  

__________________________________________________________

home