Little Nell steps up wide-eyed to the witness box
no fear of the judge. Rain writes her words
on the high window panes. Nothing is original
not even the clouds that fold and enclose us until
we are clouds ourselves, a breath that never came back
and we are old Yeats's words, a whole life held in balance

for a moment of indecision, a missed bus, a missed kiss
Nell rubs her eyes with one too-long sleeve
she's charging, she's a wave, but she's a particle too
in the courtroom she's a barque in a wide delta
trailing fingers in the perfect water of trust
and dancing cranes in the rainblind London night

collapse into the back of your eyes as you yawn
arch, and reopen them on a domestic hurricane
it's not too late to take up arms, legs, knitting
it's not too late to sail into a hot bath
I swing her up on my shoulders, I'm not too old
though she ribs me for my thinning hair, dad

gives it a flat ironical tone, trains her telescope
on a quiet French hotel, plants me up in Sligo
we were solid but are now gases, we are our breath
the air that poor man exhaled at his desk, all that's left
of all our dreams of a better world may be
a rising inflection on the very last word, you see?