Dear Daughter,
I see you in the store, rummaging
through a display of tacky hibiscus
hairclips, our town´s new fad
among fourth graders. You ask me
which color bedazzles above
all the rest. I was nine once, too.
I know you want to buy the one
that will garner the most compliments
on the playground, or a nod from a girl
who swatted you out of her path
like a delirious September wasp.
I know the stings you´ll bring home
again and again, deem unbearable.
I see you, shushing me when I speak
too loudly in the language everyone
in Spain is trying to learn. Tweaking
your American accent in English class
to sound like your friends. I know
all the gifts you´ll toss in your closet,
the smile you´ll wipe off your cheeks
like a ruby red lipstick print
when I drop you off half a block
from the school gate. At your age
I, too, tried on seven different attitudes
a week, all of them as becoming
as an elephant beetle. I see the gluten-thick
birthday cakes you can´t taste,
the gapes when you mention your two
moms. I know how you regard your
differences—a weird gang of gargoyles
marring an otherwise beautiful garden.
I want to shout, “You´re wrong!”
Dear daughter, slam the fads
on the counter and tornado away. Wild
your hair into a style that will drop
this decade´s jaw. Catwalk through town
in a hodgepodge, expletives be damned.
Cartwheel past the gatekeepers like
a carnival act. Learn the word for perfection
in 7000 different languages.
*
Julie Weiss (she/her) is the author of The Places We Empty, her debut collection published by Kelsay books, and two chapbooks, The Jolt and Breath Ablaze: Twenty-One Love Poems in Homage to Adrienne Rich, Volumes I and II, published by Bottlecap Press. Her second collection, Rooming with Elephants, is forthcoming in 2025 with Kelsay Books. “Poem Written in the Eight Seconds I Lost Sight of My Children” was selected as a 2023 finalist for Best of the Net. She won Sheila-Na-Gig´s editor´s choice award for “Cumbre Vieja,” was named a finalist for the 2022 Saguaro Prize, and was shortlisted for Kissing Dynamite´s 2021 Microchap Series. Her work appears in Chestnut Review, ONE ART, Rust + Moth, and Sky Island Journal, among others. Originally from California, she lives with her wife and children in Spain. You can find her at https://www.julieweisspoet.com/.
That ending is LIFE, Ms. Weiss. All the huzzahs and bravas I can muster.
I love this poem so much. The writing is excellent. I am a mom of two beautiful daughters, who are fourteen and almost thirteen, and understand your powerful message deeply. Thomas’ comment is so spot on when he writes “That ending is LIFE.” It really is. Brava!
Love this poem so much Julie. Slam the fads on the counter and tornado away (!)
Oh yes. This poem made me want to stand up and cheer – especially the last line. Thank you for writing her, Julie.
This poem is perfection in the 7,000 and first language, and I see images of my daughter from the past and her granddaughter in a future I may only foresee. A poem to cherish.