Time to be the fine line of light

between the blind and the sill, nothing
really. There are so many things
 
that destroy. To think solely of them
is as foolish and expedient as not 
 
thinking of them at all. All I want 
is to be the river though I return 
 
again and again to the clouds. 
All I want is to stop beginning sentences 
 
with All I want. No—no really all
I want is this morning: my daughter 
 
and my son saying “Da!” back and forth 
over breakfast, cracking each other up 
 
while eating peanut butter toast 
and raspberries, making a place for 
 
the two of them I will, eventually,
no longer be allowed to enter. Time to be 
 
the fine line. Time to practice being 
the line. And then maybe the darkness. 
 
Credit

Copyright © 2017 by Carrie Fountain. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on October 19, 2017, by the Academy of American Poets.

About this Poem
“I started this poem when my son was just beginning to acquire language, and it’s continued to grow since then, as have my children. The poem has acquired its own language and, like a lot of my writing, it returns to my obsessions with God and parenthood.”
—Carrie Fountain