In this rain-soaked sweater,
the shoulders of my heart carry
too much.
The long day stretches like
a kindergarten line,
a row of to-do's:
grade, download, print, cook, type,
change diapers,


holding you as you giggle, smile, toot.

The white school walls tell a story
through the cracks and blank stares
The silence makes it that much harder
to leave you.

When I fill up the spaces with your face,
I can do this.
When rain makes my whole body heavy,
your voice can sing me light again,
whispering through me like a soft note.

...but leaving you still makes me sad,
and when you go, I'll be sadder--

lying in the grass,
remembering your castle we made
from cardboard boxes and a tent
and a ground cloth.

I won't want you to go there,
wherever it is you will go,
and I'll be looking through
the primary-colored panels
out into the back yard,

wishing your swing was still up,
your slide in use
your toys scattered--
red blue and yellow flags of joy
only because you played with them.

There is something so perfect in your expressions--
your eyebrows angled, posed
just right for each occasion.

Love will never be a big enough word,
but I can't stop telling you:
more than all the stars in the sky,
more than all the lightning bugs in all the swamps
of all the world,
more than all the fish in the seas,
wider than the ocean.

Every day I think how you don't have your daddy,
how you may never have him
...but some holes are bigger than others,
fingerholes patched
fist holes spackled
heart holes prayered, over and over.