A child discovers the play of light

on a kitchen floor. The cosmos opens.

His mother watches tiny palms, touching

and retouching the solar display. Like a dazed

percussionist—a tiled universe the stage

for soundless concert—slow and meditative

hands press into light’s appearance-

disappearance, reach for ghost. Here:

the dimpled outline of a little foot,

a little thigh. There: the obliterating

sway of a dog’s tail. The little drummer

drums and drums again: the surface moves

and will not give to grasp. Later like this

vision softens, lengthens vocabularies—

in memory now we mouth the sun’s silent

music, opening a mother’s urge to leave

                                                                   open—