Mornings your unwashed breath

lingers over milky skin

daubed with rose madder,

and musky, cowlicked hair.

Petal-shaped lips open slightly.

Translucent abalone,

laced through with blue veins,

onionskin lids hide huge orbs,

gyrating with frightening images.

A sliver of eye shows through slits,

seeing blindly.

Suddenly, they startle open.

Falsely fragile hands

can create Klee-like portraits

but cannot hold fresh flowers.

They form firsts, release.

Your legs twitch awake,

just as they reflex jerk

as you fall into five-year-old fantasies:

dragons, Care Bears and Hexen.

At last you wake,

wiping crusts of sleep from distant dreams.

You plod heavily to me,

foggy and clumsy,

ask hoarsely,

“where’s Daddy?”