Dan Beachy-Quick


Lullaby

When a child I thought myself
    A thought—
Then thought became my home—

When thought became my habit
    The ocean grew
Absent above the stone

But pressed a ripple’s weight
    In wave
Onto the stone. I thought myself

A child. I named her little ghost.
    I brought her
Home into my thought and sat

Her on a stone. The ocean grew
    Absent above her—
But pressed an ocean’s weight

In ripple on her mind, a ripple
    Onto stone—
I taught her to breathe as ocean

Breathes, inspired but alone—
    A sediment
For memory, a fossil for a tome.