Lullaby for All Other Lullabies
       

I count what is mine to count. And drink
what I can bend to reach. Pondwater, the hours,
sometimes a child or two. This is your address
where the sky is dense as bread. Sweet and strange,

the scent of a river on fire. Count from one
to swan and feel older than you'll ever live
to be. What is the soul if it isn't all the money
you don't have time to spend. I sang

a lullaby to my daughter about the cosmos—
I've forgotten the words, but I remember
the rhythm: A map of an island unexplored,
you and you, a casket of rum, foot stomp,

a slide of the horn. You don't hear it, you
feel it, your bones knit from thirst and song.

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Copyright © 2020 Gary McDowell All rights reserved
from Poetry Northwest
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission