ALREADY

My daughter is eight & alreadyworried she won’t find someone to marryor, more precisely, someone who will want to marryalready the notion of marriage arrives an exclusionary prize.Though I say she seems unconvincedthat life’s destination isn’t a prince, caped,at the end of 8th grade, the time fallingin love & marrying is said to happen. In Philadelphialanternflies cling to trees & we agree to kill them,the flies, to save the trees. I wonder what makes an ideainvasive, how we can know as we grow our desiresto suck dry another’s sap, inject it with our sadness,release our dreams from their cold bark knowing someonesomeday may crush us with purpose: a personal victoryin the name of ecological community. Always,a looking back at what could have been hadwe held our daughters longer, saw in them the tree & the fly,allowing in its own time, in its own hurting wayour longing to die—a different story seeded withinher wish to fit into the readymade world, alreadychanging. I inhale the mulch of her blooming,bury my face in her hair. She has already leftmy hands, finished her breakfast, hopped off her chair.