She changes positions in a blue club chair
front facing forward, feet perched on a small ottoman
next thing, shoes kicked off, legs curl underneath her, knees
point first to one side, then the other, her slim ankles,
her rough heels exposed. The book is in one
hand raised to catch the window light, her free hand
fiddles with her collar, the pencil behind her ear.
She is lost in the novel, oblivious to battles
raging in the other room, her focus on Joyce
is impenetrable, yet a time-lapse photo would
show her in perpetual motion, criss-cross applesauce
legs, dangling feet, standing, then plopped back down,
the arms of the chair were
a tattered weave beneath her olive capris.
I don’t know if my daughters watched me read the
way I watched her, nor do I know the motion
beneath their stillness. I only know that
when I look up from a book some days
I feel like I’ve been walking for days, way out to
the Burren and all the way back from the sea.
Early Morning Poems 