I can’t figure out belonging.
Today, in child’s pose from the pain
and on the phone with my mother

I hear her chopping scallions and
the pan sizzling with some kind of
specialty that I’m not home for

Charlotte, our littlest bird, is
reading another new book, and
Isabel wakes after noon in

direct defiance of my father
who goes on ‘light walks’ now,
says, we’re solar creatures

and loves me, even when I’m too
busy. Sometimes I write today belongs
to me, but I don’t believe it; I don’t know

I’ve ever owned anything; pain comes
and it comes and anyways how
could I have all this? All of you—

When I’m no longer a daughter
I will still be yours, belonging and
belonging and it’s so easy I can’t bear it—