That room

The door's always cracked open,
the humid swamp cooler air holding it
in stasis,
just enough
to hear the late-night cries
from each of three beds:
Daddy; and, I had a nightmare; and, I'm thirsty.

Sleepdrunk, I push the door
that always creaks twice,
assist reluctantly and leave a stern warning.
See you in the morning.

This isn't my job, my responsibility. My duty.
Not something forced or worth rolling eyes at.
They look up at me, into me,
with full eyes while I'm half-asleep,
half-trudging through fatherhood.

Will I ever remember how heart-shattering
the most minute details were?
The sound of a sneeze, a burbling laugh,
mispronounced words, troublemaking,
anticipation for trivial things.
Will I always be an adult--mature, overseeing?
Will I recognize what I have?

These little personalities, distinct and growing,
small packages of voice and song, smiles,
handmedown shirts and dresses,
sturdy legs and golden skin.

There's not enough love to capture them,
to remember them.
I can't wrap myself around them
tight enough for them to ever know. Or
cover them,
a protective sheath that makes them
mine.
Keeps them tiny and spirited and perfect until they
burst free,
someday.
Because there isn't enough of me
to contain all that is them.

The ballroom

They climb rockbent ladders,
legs like cottonwood limbs.
Smoke rises up the ashblack rock wall
where ground grain cooks, and
the floor of the kiva is streaked wet,
rust-colored and black with
sweat and charcoal.

Behind the defensive wall,
beneath the jutting sandstone overhang,
their bare feet make weak footprints
in the ancient dust--
some grand dance
in the cool underbelly of the cave.

Balanced precision in all things,
their wide smiles and telling eyes.
Time like a hurricane, seasons
of earth and snow and sun
all back over again,
channeled through the bodies of
people who know better.

Little dried corncobs and shattered
bits of clay bowls.
Smoothed indentations in rock just
handholds for curious fingers.
Gravity takes intricate purposeless
walls and makes skipping stones of them.
Ladder legs lie split and ravaged
among the rockshards.
All hidden and eroding in the emptiness
of the canyon cliffs.