Your baby grows a tooth, then two, and four, and five, then she wants some meat directly from the bone. It's all over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet talker on his way to jail. And you, your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue nothing. You did, you loved, your feet are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.
From New and Selected Poems, 1975-1995, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1997. Copyright © 1990 by Thomas Lux. All rights reserved. Used with permission.