Sinixt

Back when your Mama launched me
On this weird lyric sequence
That I gradually fused
With the equally hoary

Forms of the commonplace book,
Diary, and short essay,
All this sheer wool gathering
And idle navel gazing,

Your navel was still glowing
From when I'd neatly tied it
With the help of the midwife
Just a few weeks earlier.

Today you turn six years old.
I suspect it won't be long
Before you can understand
What I've struggled to compose

Better than I can myself.
For now, you interrogate,
Glancing over my shoulder,
Miffed when I tap on my screen.

"What are you doing there now?
Put the phone away, Papa!
I want you to play with me."
By the lakes where you were born

A people once lived that fixed
Importance to the number
Six. Not even descendants
Keen to remember know why.

Why do we find importance
In any abstract notion?
There is no absolute six,
No one left to worship it.

There will be no poetry,
No me, no such distractions
As time and identity
Soon enough. You're right. Let's play.