Grey Brown | Poems

The Door

The other children
don canvas aprons,
waving wooden spoons
before getting down to business.
Tiny café
replete with booths,
rubber bagels,
hot dogs,
plastic key lime pie
for dessert.

In the bakery
croissant molds await,
and two preschool entrepreneurs
sell their creations
to babies who consume
play-dough, dust and all.
And in the midst of it
my two-year-old daughter stands
in awe of a cabinet’s opening and closing,
swinging the door wide,
pausing for one beat,
and then sweeping it shut again
in a way that could be a dance,
but isn’t.

I pace, keeping my daughter in view
though she no longer sees me,
consumed by her own
concentrated rhythm.
I time
ten, fifteen, twenty minutes.

Taking her tiny hand,
I try to distract her
with a princess costume
and a puppet pony.
Her screech silences the entire show.
Trains stop in their tracks,
blocks tumble with surprise
and every mother’s head
snaps to find her own.