She’s late—God knows for what—
and you’re stuck behind another damn truck
on the Staten Island Expressway.
You’ve tried everything to calm her
but nothing you say is what she wants—
your very existence makes her mad
and why the hell not? 
 
She’s sprawled in back and leans against the door,
though you’ve told her, again, she might fall out 
and you’ve loved her so much.
Her headphones make her deaf to any appeal
and more dear to you now as a consequence,
her imperfections suddenly undisguised, 
human and forgivable,
and not having been visited upon her 
by the same foreign power
that brought her her womanly body and wild hair.
 
This is not exactly what you’d hoped 
starting out, and certainly not here in Staten Island,
the cheap malls where no one ever goes
built on our own shit and rusted bumpers
and bustling with the busyness of zombies
who you’d accept as means to an end
because it might never get better than this— 
a truck falling over on you as you pass 
if only to leaven the silence
and your brains chewed up while waiting for the cops
and the two of you rising together holding hands
the way it was when she was four,
and now finally forgiving your sins,
                                                            
and though you haven’t spoken of it for years 
you arrive some place like heaven
because it’s something you both can understand,                  
since nothing else makes sense
and maybe you could tolerate each other there
and be together again.
 
Oh, and long as we’re dreaming,
let’s make it a beautiful view
of the sun coming up over Brooklyn,
as the long hauler we’re tucked behind rattles and reels 
and the wind winds you up on the overpass,
your day-old coffee sloshing in the Styrofoam cup, 
your daughter weeping in back,
her head gently keeping time to what she feels
and what, from this time on, you, of all people,
are never to know.