spun

i took my daughter when
she was two years old
to the old newspaper
in damariscotta where
i worked

when it was just her,
and i was twenty five
and wore a mustache
and was a terrible journalist.

she was make-believe
back then, a minor character
in a story i worked on
in my head.

i didn't know anything,
more so than today, but
not by much, and she
had beautifully pudgy hands.

i planted her in an office
chair and began to spin her
slowly, a father's
insouciance.

she gripped the sides of
the seat of the chair
and said nothing,
because my first-born

is the spirit of deep water
and flows in the depths of
living in a soundless purl;
she's felt before heard.

she smiled - i do remember
this distinctly - because
i always knew she felt jubilation
by the raised corners of her mouth.

i spun her faster and the ends
of her hair lifted up like
a ride at a fair and the prose
of my heart sang.

until she fell,
having loosed her
grip, toppling sideways
and onto the floor.

she bellowed into
my breastbone,
her tears doused my
collar and i sat on

the floor with her.
a co-worker tsk'd
and i soothed my
daughter in a grip.

when she'd been
consoled, she returned to
her solace, her place
of quiet, and we ate lunch.

i did not spin her in chairs
ever again, but i am finding
it hard to believe that
entirely.

the trees at night
hold in their arms the
moon, at least for awhile,
before she descends,

only to be held again,
so i hold to a belief
that age defies the pull
of the turn in some fashion,

that being a father is a
series of good intentions
meant to figure that story out,
to round out those characters.

i have some clue as
to what the spin has done,
hoping against hope
that she loved the motion

and hated the fall,
but knowing that
the cause of either
was my own innocence.

she has her own
minor character now,
who clings and smiles,
twirls and cries.

she does well in
that role; so much
better than i, with so
much more quietude.

all of that to say
that i think it was
i who got spun back then
and fell,

and that she, by simply
being, propped this old
moon back up, with the
strength of her quiet arms.