First Light

(Chernobyl, 1986)

I hear him.  In that thin wash of dawn
when world is caught remembering
it ought to be real

and at the foot of your bed you glimpse
your night self spooling back its long trails
from each of the rooms.

That’s when he walks.  Walks those stairs
in my head and I wake – remember
I have a house.

On yellow sand they walk me.  Where
there’s as much sea as sky.  I remember
there is no God.

I try to be water.  What mostly makes us
makes us kin.  Water can have a past.
Can remember.

A girl steps up.  Says – I’ve finished my
homework.  Unspoilt cheeks.  Unnatural
blue eyes.  And I raise

hands to a face sticky with myself.  At last
I look through.  Remember

I have a daughter.