through the window, Pap-Pap, 
Huckleberry Hound hat on, 
shovels snow off the back deck, 
and I wonder if this memory, of all 
the others, will be her first, like Daddy
walking down the hill from the rental cabin
to take me home, or my towering grandfather 
clucking in the pearled pink snail
of his teeth, looking down and saying
“You Dutchman, you.”
Not some special time, I hope,
not Christmas day nor candle-snuffing third 
birthday. There are kids, I guess, 
who live in a money-feathered nest
of Magic Kingdoms, Disney days
and firework princess nights, 
the jingle-belled hooves and snowy thump 
of Santa’s boots on the roof, every day 
three-rings of enchantment until, inevitably, 

the circus leaves town.

I hope for her instead some 
banal but beautiful image,
okay, maybe snowy, but also
Huckleberry Hounded, just another 
life, usual, boring, ordinary, but magically
momentary.