Lucinda: illuminated

photo by Scott Snyder

Lucinda: illuminated
by Allison Snyder

You are asleep on my chest,
your tiny body laced onto mine.
You are a mysterious traveler from a foreign land.
A halo of fluff covers your head;
in your delicate, lavender eyelids,
I can see the past, the future.
When your eyes open, light shoots through me.

Your heavenly bits are wearing thin, my darling,
now four months in this world.
You stir when a shiver of life runs through you.
You smell more of Dreft than of the ether.
Soon, your otherworldly memories and magic will disappear.
By the time you can speak, you will no longer be able to tell me
where you've been, where you were going.

"I love you!" I whisper urgently:
it's all I can think to say,
yet it encompasses everything.
"You're mine," and immediately
I know you never were,
but what I mean is: You're home now,
and I claim you.