Book of Stingers / Meditation on Lacing My Daughter’s Ice Skates

my fingers have a God complex
they dream of prying stingers from my children's bodies 
and collecting them in a box, labeled by date:
here is the time when mommy saved you, you remember?
when you stepped on a bee the summer after first grade
this one is from the time you found a wasp's nest in a tree, 
you were terrified! / here's another and another and another
mommy saved you, look at the proof
in her infancy, I could lay one of my daughter’s feet 
across the pad of my fingertip, fragment of a cloud.
I try to remember or reimagine her tiny toes curled and uncurled 
against my skin like a novice archer pulling back her bow, 
who then, unsure, reconsiders and lets go.
she watches the figure skaters leave their mark on the ice
their bird spines tilt up like immortal ladders
I have dreamed bones and blood into something         whole, 
something that stands then walks, fills the room 
with her mood, emerges taller in the morning
spins on a sheet of ice like she is the center of gravity
but I have the book of stingers so
I bind the laces tighter and watch her glide
pull the arrow tight against the bow hope
that she looks back as she finds her way 
onto the ice her figure fading
into something I no longer recognize.