Pulling Up

PULLING UP

After morning coffee I sit to write

in search of a God I haven’t felt 

in some time, on whom I nonetheless

pelt my poems like the texts 

I sent my high school girlfriend

months after our breakup: How’s it going? 

What are you like these days? 

What my daughter is like these days

is everywhere—if short of omnipresent, 

not by much—and at the present

persistent in finding how best 

to narrow the gap between us

by clambering up the ladder 

of my leg. Would it help to know, sweet girl,

that my legs too are weaker than hoped, 

and I myself have often coped 

by crying, for example, 

or giving up altogether to niggle 

with crumbs beneath the table? 

You might—if you were able—

find some solace in that the puzzled

struggle of your ascent is a universal   

one. No, you are not alone in this endeavor,

dear. This doesn’t make it easier,   

but together we are pulling at the leg hair

of a love that is bigger,

wrangling to right our feet

beneath our knees that we might

draw ourselves—quavering—closer. 

One day you’ll see what I’m after. 

Or say you see already, and we might learn 

a thing or two from you: Return 

to a seated position. Eyes turned

upwards. Wait there, arms lifted.