Questions of Salvation

​​QUESTIONS OF SALVATION

I was, as all of us, woefully inadequate

and unprepared. Who would suspect

that on the heels of the placenta comes

an odd unease with who gets in?

Explanation: it is not for lack of desire, see,

that her world lacks a certain integrity,  

color a completion not yet gifted her

developing perspective. And if I were

to punish her for this deficiency,

you would—I trust—consider me 

sadistic, demanding heights

to which her very essence cannot, 

per nature of the climb, ascend (and once

again, not for lack of desire.) Or if

the ticket were the color yellow, say,

she then would be—must I say 

it?—cast down as one of the damned, 

small refuse with the rest whose differing

deficiencies disqualified their admittance.

But no, she is cupped in my hands

tonight, her undeveloped eyes scanning

upwards, seeking, seeking. What I’m saying

is—one earnest father to another—please 

grant that this, somehow, might suffice.