Untitled Poem by Denis Mair

The daughter getting farther away in the Greyhound
Is beyond where I can imagine.
Interior running lights of phosphor-green
Show the shape of her head, reflected on glass
Against the Dakota night.
I try to resolve the picture, but the Badland darkness
Empties her silhouette.
If she had to leave, it should have been in a perfect vehicle,
But she rides that dirigible of the road,
Dispatched by a broken-down scab corporation
Into a triangle my wavelength will not reach.
The sealed-off revolutions of engines
Are faster propelling souls at night-time
Than my sorting of memories
Can fix a negative under ruby light.

Yet within my heart is a template that strained to find her form
Among a crowd of children emerging from a schoolyard gate.
How can I not want to sift through the aureole
Of blips and squeaks surrounding Radio City?
On the fifth day I pick up her laughter,
Along a row of shops where music spills onto the street.
The bruised fruit of the air
Breathes to her a secret quivering.
I lose her at the doorway of a juice bar
Not being alive enough to the music.

One week later I place her again,
She is in a series of cubicles;
She can send only a position locator,
She is exposed to the weather, where others have dug in.
I consign her to the distance, but my comfort-seeking heart
Still looks to her hard work in the past,
Surely, that has prepared her to take hold,
While I go off and try to take hold myself.
I know—a rootless rage is afoot,
And many cannot point to it
For it hounds them like the dogs of Bardo.
She takes it in herself,
in heart and hands,
Her long crossing has begun.
Her initiation in which I hope to follow her,
If only I do my part to lead her along.