Feet in the Bowl

Let’s wash your feet in milk.
Tell me how sweet and cooling it was –
eighteen years later, when we meet again.
You are my daughter and do you see, do you know,
that the hardest part of love is keeping milk
from going sour? One day, they will tell you.

Let me hold you. Let me hold you again,
before the scene changes
and you run barefoot into other rooms.

I am not your mother, but I exist,
in order to make your little life splendid.
One day, you will remember.