LEARNING ABOUT GIRLS
(WITH MADELEINE)
The middle of my second three,
Daughter Two the mystery I’m both closest to and farthest
From, my child most unlike me.
What can I say but that she lives a life
I could never but would like to know,
My willowy rose-topped window into
The ways and wiles of girls
Becoming female naturally.
This is my Maddy,
My oh-so-social maker of friends
With whom she leaves innocence slowly,
Caregiver to all creatures great and small,
With whom she shares intimacies lost on me.
A girl girl, she has shopper’s gene not from me,
Has a well-developed buyer’s mind that knows
Just what’s right for her and what she is
And knows how she will get it,
One way or another.
She’s a student of gizmos,
A maker of lists to order
All things trivial and wonderful,
Puts all small things in order,
In a world crafted to her strong sense of style.
Why should it not be mine?
Borrowed so I can be with her,
My little window into the ways and wiles
Of little girls becoming women naturally.
(4/28/04)