You laugh when I speak Truth--
You laugh because you are afraid,
        You laugh because you are jealous,
        you make light because you don't know
what it means
    to hold her on your lap
        three days after she's entered this world,
and tickle her silly chin,
    and prop her against pillows
        and encourage her to giggle and grow
                with words like "So big!"
                    and "I love you."
You never stood outside in summer,
    barefooted,
waiting for the trickling hose to fill
    her swimming pool
or carried buckets of warm water
overflowing and sloshing down your legs,
    splattering mud on your ankles until they itched,
just so that when she
    slipped her little pink body,
wearing a yellow swimsuit with ruffles,
wrapped in a Sesame Street towel,
into the pool,
            she would not shiver.
You didn't teach her to hold her nose
    before going underwater in the bathtub
or even before going under with you.

You never sat with her
    on the scratchy blue couch
while she sounded out words from
Dr. Seusse,
        You never wiped the tears when
she got frustrated.
            You never even wiped the tears
                    she cried for you,
and you ignore the tears
    I cry for her.

You never knelt with her
on the shores of Lake Superior
to finger the smoothest rocks,
or rocked her baby dolls to sleep,
    or cut out her paper dolls
or paid a dollar
    so she could ride the carousel
                or see a movie.
You never read novels to her
    on long car rides,
        French braided her hair,
drove into town to rent videos,
on hot summer nights when she was sick,
cried when you heard her vomit,
kept cool rags on her
    blistering sunburns,
bought her coloring books and CDs and Barbie clothes
    with meager wages
earned baby-sitting and stuffing envelopes
    and calling strangers on the telephone.

You never laid on the floor
    of her newly cleaned room,
        and stared at the cracks in the ceiling
and talked to her about God.
And you never laid beside her in bed
    until her whispers slowed
and disintegrated
    into her soft breathing in the dark.

I hope you never will.

You don't know these things,
    you don't know me.
So you cannot possibly know her.
                    --May 15th, 2001