Where We Had Thought You Safe

It was not for this moment

that we had walked you to school

& saved a purple ribbon or two

& carried you across a rocky stream

to search for a missing shoe

you thought was part of you

It was not for this moment

that we gathered photos

& strung them end to end

like an aerial tram

over a nature preserve

of the happiest places you had been

It was not for this moment

silent arrangements were made

to show justice in a princely light

to render mysteries benign

to pretend fortune has no bite

to dictate only from the Book of Delight

It was for this fracture of time

broken in a swirl of anesthesia

that your children darted through trick signs

in the half-truth riddles given them

past time drawn straight in frictionless space

to that place we had thought you safe

for Chondra

April 2012