Ayla at Two

Ayla at Two With a fistful of raisins and Chocolate-flavored goatee, Your favorite Dora tee shirt Splotched red from your spaghetti lunch, We sit on the floor together as You climb on up for a quick fix of Mommy, A moment of squeeze, And I gather you up As you tell of something wonderful In your lovely language of syllabic sound and I tell you I know Because I do. You smile at me then, Your grin like the wedge of a tangerine, Sweet and juicy and Pretty enough to eat, so I do. I gobble you up until You scramble away giggling, Sated for the moment, Busy feet wandering on To other happenstance and adventure. Tireless fingers, Testing, trying, Reckoning your world within the Workings of a brand-new beguiling toy. Your sunny, funny little face, Scrunched up in concentration Until you get it, And you laugh your jingle-bell laugh, Rejoicing in doing it, Getting it, mastering it, Mistress of the World at last. You say, “Look, Mommy! See, Mommy!” (Your conquest only real if Mommy sees.) But with the swiftness of infancy, You suddenly wail and cry out loud When you couldn’t get it to go again, It stopped without reason or repose. So, I scoop you up, The second time in as many breath-beats And my heart swells, Too big for the space it’s allotted because Knowing I, too, need the consolation, You gently pat my back as I hold you, Head on my shoulder, Tears abated for now, And after a time of Rocking and swaying you say, “I wuf you, Mommy,” And the moment turns Perfection into itself, Immaculate, As it boasts its way Through us, Bursting in the center of Our one heart.