I sit and watch a ship creak under its burden. Months might pass until I hear that another has sunk, popping from its fittings, flailing through darkness, breaking up under cover of sea. But I have a daughter and she is rare as anything. She is as seaweed is, jewels, birds, groaning trees, storms, gold thread, moonlit fires. Sometimes I’m not sure how she got here, but I don’t mean I’m not sure what I’ve done. She is my mirror. I hold her up to me and cringe.

This kingdom will cover over with green mosses while straight-backed trees look down. Life will be reordered out of joy and an equality of sexual union. No one I know knows calamity as I do. I think in the daylight as well as the dark. My mind travels cities and villages. It follows animal tracks to the perimeter and rests on its hind legs waiting.

Who is afraid of me? Even the light runs from me. I run after. In this way I run errands. But I do not run from myself. I whisper into the fire at night. Young boys watch from the edge of the trees as I cook. Moving from the hearth to the table I’m the flash of darkness between the cracks in the wood. Soon the boys turn and scramble home, scratching their cheeks on low branches. They fill themselves up on hearty grains and psalms. But they sleep poorly. They have dreams. The firelight is orange against the midnight of the ocean behind my home.