When she is three, she makes her choice: a skeleton
for a father. No one can convince her otherwise.

In her wisdom she turns him
to absence, the man who’s naught.

Her mother – a radiologist –
knows the eclipse: dancing

bones and empty grin
between the mirror and herself.

And so, when the child paints,
her sky is wider, less like a pot lid

settled on the box of house, people
in the windows thin as straw.

When she sings, her words are little planets
passing into careless shadow

cast by an opiate moon.
Her cuffs drop down, covering her hands.