The Daughter

The daughter, the daughter with her tender, tired, rosy eyes her free spirit sent down from a lofty stratosphere to a kicked gut pulled by the chain that keeps her balloon heart from floating, floating, floating She sinks like a stone in the sea, thrown by this event without a skip her tender, tired, rosy eyes burning pink like a bridge between what she sees and how she feels The dog, the old dog with a salty lip and metal hip waits on his master's chair, hoping that maybe keeping it warm might mean a sliver of rich time tossing something anything "play with me" But by this event, the arthritis legs of a labrador retriever digs up a new trick in the backyard and lays down in the hole to join his master The father, a master, resting in a jagged jailcell a slicing white hospital bed with a wishlist for a tail that cowers underneath his failing heart hugging it so close as if it were the reason his blood turns blue With a republican head and Yankee spine, his stubbornness could not cushion his fall And at the time, the nurse was fetching him water