Beautiful Daughter

The birch shadows compose and loosely
rein in the red-gold light-shards her skin
throws off. One shadow branch almost bridles
the powers arcing their shoulders inside her,
bristling their lion-colored manes. They are
barely contained. This gives her skin
the effulgence of adobe, smeared with sun.

Some days she is braiding her hair when I
look, making two puma-colored ropes she
coils around her head; but loosened, her hair
is lithe and fluid as rain. She shies
away from his eyes, whose corners graze her
with their green lights. Some of her flies away
at the least touch like wild horses; some of her stays.