By Daniel Reuben Barlow

four-footing-it from the ground
 

‘like Straaw Bear-re -Why-i-9′
 

we danced,
 
with you– all tiny arms, four-footing-it
 
from the ground,

 
and me– sometimes straying into step
 
and staying, diligently, out of tune.
 

For the short hours of an afternoon
 
we were the seasonal laughter
 
of a carousel wheel
 

and the awkward dip
 
of a high-school dance.
 

(thought i’d be spinning for the rest of the day)
 

I would lean down
 
and touch my lips to your head,
 
as you little-personed-it,
 
squiggling and fish jiggling,
 
laying kisses on
 
the big glass door
 

and casting out
 
the eerie image of the child
 
who walks here when you’re gone.

 
And it’s strange that before the-short-hour-call
 
I would look at her
 
just as much as I eye-balled you,

 
that in the dying minutes of
 
an afternoon visit,
 
I might see you there–

 
together