Her Life
by Liz Abrams-Morley

Loving the leap, the fall:
     grace to pond to prayer
          an ankle won't buckle,

Erica's eyes glint silver
     when she skates.
          I want to hold it -

The way she sighs
     It's so close to flying, Mom,
          her pre-teen hands

Dipping and soaring swans,
     conducting a taped song,
          its lyric of fated skaters,

Their fall played over and over
     and over that, her eyes cut patterns
          around her room,

Imperfect approximation of the set
     she dreams to backdrop the drama
          she'd surely make her life,

If only her life were not so safe, if only
     her mother was not once a child
          too timid to trade

Double runners for figure skates.
     I have wished for my daughter
          one moon-rimmed lake,

A surface on which she could break
     her sparrow leg in two or more places
          if she didn't ace each winged landing.

I have wished her courage
     but still, held tight her hand,
          led her daily at four or three

Over the same suburban sidewalks,
     the same safe streets and squares,
          same even green park while

Hungry for texture she
     would wriggle free, dart,
          reach, pocket it all -

The browned leaves, the bits
     of shale, the curled shell bones
          outgrown by a summer's cicadas.