metonymy4u

           because

if i were another of your tears the ocean didn’t want
i’d give something unexpected to the world
             instead of a child,

my daughter thought the story funny when six
years old i told her while swinging in the chair
we strung for her the year of her birth.

she thought we’d made the whole thing up.

how we’d conceived the idea of her
while holidaying in stockholm, tried
all the way from hessen to the dolomites
to give desire expression. finding none

i planted a stone for your memory.
tilled the garden for other works,

i might leave in your stead.