The Immaculate Daughter

Meghan Dunsmuir

It is in the palest light

That an infinity begins

In the mind of a girl

In the morning time.

But the moment is fleeting,

It also ends.

There was a bus, and we got on it.

We laughed like we knew where we were going,

Intruding on late night travelers.

We got off

As quickly as we had gotten on,

Irrelevant passengers on a routine

Journey through the dark.

Now we stood

On the side of the road,

Still smiling.

Still pretending,

Our vision blurred

By flecks of rain.

In the second of waking,

As light fights its way

Through cracks in the black,

A gossamer floss

Is suspended between

Dreamland and lifetime.

Ready to shatter

As the weight of yourself

Crashes down.

He stood

Beside the side door

Outlined in dewy light.

I came out,

Stocking feet on a damp,

Concrete floor.

We fell into conversation,

Easy, delicate and soft.

But we grew out of talk

As I leaned forward

Into him.

His mouth

Became my mouth,

And his hands

Became my hands,

And the softly moving fingers

In between my own,

Drew me closer.

When consciousness breaks,

The weight of the past

Demands attention.

From hard truths,

To white lies

And the bottles under the bed,

To all of the things

That have never been said.

My hands felt

The coarse fabric of his shirt

That must have once been soft.

While his hands felt

For the underneath.

And so in the blackness,

I only saw what there was to feel,

Of his mouth

And his shirt

And his hands on my ass.

These secrets are kept

To offer protection

To an idea

Of a daughter.

Who is strong enough

To deal with anything,

Or at least should pretend

That she can.

A daughter who wasn’t raised to think

That things can go wrong

Before they can grow.

When we go back inside,

The room feels as sodden

As the soles of my feet.

I think that I danced,

And I think that the smoke

Got into my lungs

From under the door

And it definitely did

When it was passed

All the way around.

Because it seemed as though

The floorboards where a baby girl

Had once stacked building blocks

Were plummeting

One by one

Shifting the things

I knew to be true

That are not so true

Anymore.

The secrets are part

Of the mind that awoke

When the flash of the infinite

Possibility arose.  

And though the weight

Comes falling back down

It also retains  

The mind

That is mine.

In the morning I will wake,

Free of any burdens,

That I’ve been carrying.

The moment

Where it is infinitely possible,

For everything and nothing but

Until then

I wait,

For the palest light.