My Daughter Is A Photograph

A hand held on green moss, she waits
this white limb, this ivory lizard on a gallery wall.

There was a woman I once knew, an artist
who covered her children with leaves
photographed them naked in mud
and as they grew
her audience complained--
a young penis turned to bark.

Is it not the same with us?

My small kitten, my wet love.
The one who sprang from these legs
wrapped in the branches
and twigs of my motherwant.

Daughter, you are the shape of my pocket
carried like stone through the mud of my life.

These are the images I create
photographs taken
as innocence slips by.