Kate Sweeney      Largo     (Sidney Wade)
My Daughter Talks to Water

My daughter talks to water,
sings to the bubbles in the bathtub,
waves her tiny starfish hand 
to the intercoastal as we drive away 
from the beach. Asks it,
Can you hear me say ‘goodbye’?

My daughter talks to fish and they come, 
pinfish and sharks, circling the pier
as she stands at the edge. 
I grip her wrist like a shackle 
and she struggles against it
like someone committed to something
against their will. 

She was conceived in Amsterdam, 
where canals slide beneath cyclists
and flowers potted on bridges. The next morning
her father and I stood over the Bloemgracht 
and watched a crane on a barge pull twisted spokes
and lawn chairs from the brown water.  

My daughter talks to the moon,
a scrap of wet paper hanging over the bay.
She tells me it is pink because that is the only color
she knows and I start to believe it because she says it 
with more certainty than anyone else, 
about anything else in the whole world.

My daughter talks to water and my son 
tries to correct her, tells her Water can’t talk.
But she and I know the difference between 
the things that chatter and the things that speak, 
the difference between the yank of an undertow 
and the gritty sooth of your own tide.