I was crawling along the floor painting a white

            line with my body

as I'd go sometimes feeling rebellious I'd make it zig-

            zag: a bunch

of knotty squiggles so it was barely a line

            at all then go back

to crawling so the line grew straight as a divider

            on the highway

the baby right behind me forging his own

            steady white line

out of his body though more slowly so sometimes

            he'd fall behind

have to catch up rounding the corner after

            losing sight of

me for a moment we continued this way until

            I could see

I'd been travelling a square circuit—or at least a series

            of straight moves

with turns that in one more span would bring me back

            to the start—

when he woke me with his morning cry and I stopped crawling

            rose to find him

at the door we were sitting together in the dawn light

            he was drawing

the line of milk out of me hazily I saw

            this line

(would it have been better if I'd been able to

            complete it—)

as my life (—or was he completing it competing it opening

            it up-

ending it open-ending it

 

 

 (“The White Line” from REALM OF THE POSSIBLE by Sharon Dolin © 2004.

With permission of the publisher, Four Way Books, Inc., all rights reserved.)