The Falling Down Dance

Martin's lines are a brief as breath, and cloister us at home, in winter, where the tiny everyday ministrations of love and parenthood are magnified and abundant with meaning.

I wanted to tell you something
About the shipwreck
Of fatherhood, of motherhood, the coarse
Sugar leaving us
Shook. Soft wreck of the baby
Greeting each kiss
With an open
And drooling mouth, reflex
We don't understand
Heart-blip stuck
Tipping my finger
On the keys, speeding
Memory of yesterday out
The window I'm
Pushing barely open

Chris Martin is the author of American Music (Copper Canyon, 2007) and Becoming Weather (Coffee House Press, 2011).