just this moment:

i climb down
grandfather tree in the yard,
sap still stuck to my fingers
(i’m six)

i blink:

now i am delivering
my daughter (wet)
from the womb

she’s left home;
my face looks
tawny & leathery
in dreadful mirrors

my body yields to desert -
craves sex less & less

now i throw helicopter seeds
to the wind -

watch them spiral,
downward,
like a child.