9 months after

I have been working over the words
for that morning,
holding them on my tongue
trying them out, silently—
the way you taste everything:
stuffed rabbit
rubber duck
remote control.
The way you lick at the air, make clicking noises,
confident in your practice of some tribal language
you have no business knowing.

The way you make a game
of dropping your sippy cup
again and again.
until it breaks
quietly. I don’t see
the crack, just
an unexplained leak
and something foreign floating inside
or is that light catching the water?

The way something so dangerous can be so beautiful:
your books teaching you to touch everything—
leopard, iguana, monster—
teaching you the unusual
adjectives like
bobbly & shimmery.

That morning
you broke me open,
so strange and powerful.
And each day
I am broken again.