' ' ' ' Close Shave - Sequence(For Miss S)

Always her fascination with me shaving. This her early morning ritual observing each action as if it were holy. I hide my face in foam. “Santa Claus! Santa Claus! ” she chants winces with delight as the razor (she gulps) goes over my bump without slicing it off. The shaving uncovers the me she knows. “Soft…soft! ” “Mr. Daddy Soft Soft! ” she gurgles in a lather of laughter. “Me now…now me! ” she pleads with me. I take the brush coat her reflection with foam. I shave her with the tip of my little finger. Her reflection sniggers & she sniggers too. Later, in the early evening she appears bearded in fresh cream. She shaves herself with a lollipop stick. “Me... Daddy now...see! ” I cha cha cha her on the tips of my toes as she clings to my fingertips dancing around the living room. One delighted half shaved little girl. One delighted soft soft Mr. Daddy. ******* STICKS. She clutches her “sticks” two twisted twigs she just picked up but which to her are precious. All her other toys just loll around forgotten now as the dinosaur gazing out the window where she had placed him to look at clouds & clap her hands & laugh. A rag doll throws herself across a chair weeps & tries to remember the touch of her hand the smile that never ceased to surprise her. She prods herself with her twigs chortles with glee as the twig sinks in & the flesh gives way leaving little designs upon her. It amuses her the way the skin reasserts itself & becomes her again whether it be thigh or belly or knee. “Me drawing on me with sticks! ” she announces proudly. After investigating her own skin she investigates mine & Mummy’s delighted with our ows & ouches that she “draws” out of us. “Oh...ouches! ” she smiles fascinated that it also elicits sounds. And now our little explorer falls (still clutching) asleep (her sticks) these her most precious objects. She our most precious object. ******* 6 O’ CLOCK SHOCK! Our sleeping naked bodies nothing but mere landscape hills & dales of flesh to be tramped across by the tiny patter of your little feet as they trample upon my balls sit on Mummy’s left tit we both come awake in total shock. “Want a cuddle! ” you announce in your imperious tones & despite our obvious pain we acquiesce at once drag you in slaves to your love wrap our warmth & our flesh about you And soon all 3 of us snoring now as if we were The 3 Bears of the story I had read to you sleepily the night before. ******* BOX OF MEMORIES The years cover them as much as this rich earth her memories we dig up & there they are good as new all the things that used to be you buried in a box. Even the calligraphy survives the years: “TILLY’S MEMORY BOX.” Your teenage self takes your 3 year old left blue shoe cradles it in your hand. You have no memory of it only us telling you the story of the memory of “it”. How the right blue shoe was irretrievably lost on holiday floated out to sea by a so curious you. Somewhere before the horizon sinking out of view. But you wouldn’t relinquish the left (and what it meant.) How you wouldn’t go to sleep without it clutched in your grasp for a year or more until we buried it in this box of Tilly things. A broken rattle wrapped in silence a chipped glass heart wrapped in pink & blue tissue paper a magnetic elephant clinging for dear life to the bottom of the box labelled “TILLY’S MEMORIES.” I watch you cry for you (and I cry too) for your forgotten self big unreal tears plashing into your open palm as you retrieve from Time the things that were yours your frail body sobbing against my shoulder like you used to do when you were my little girl a left blue shoe clutched in your hand now & then as you attend the resurrection of the you you never knew until now. ******* GIRL SQUIRREL I wait for your awakening. And yes, there are things I could be(should be) doing. But. Now I find I can’t do anything without you and your constant interrupting of my known world with the simple fact of yourself. I wait for you to wake so you can exist me bring me into being. You stumble towards me as if sleep were a net that still entangled you placing yourself against my shoulder name me to make me real. I heave you up against my shoulder the little heft of you the perfect weight of you like a dream that has come true dribbling my name down the back of my open necked shirt. I attempt to dress you in the necessary clothes that constitute a walk in the park but to you clothes are playthings. You wear your pink teddy bear knickers on your head big bunches of hair sticking out where the legs should be as you wee wee over my hand. “Oh naughty wee wee! ” you chastise yourself. I take an age amazed at what Mummy can do in a minute or two. Finally with only your eyes showing I strap in my little Ninja & we go visit the trees & squirrels & swings. You want to know if it is a girl squirrel. I can’t tell but tell you that it is. A bird sits on the swing beside the swing you swing upon. You accept it not as a bird but as a fellow traveller learning the ways of this alien world & how to control a Daddy so he does exactly what you wish him to do. ******* NEWBORN. I love the lullaby of you. Your voice cuddles me. Your laughter swoops like a swift little bird alighting upon my attention. Your name comforts me. Your words drip like a honey I can almost taste. Your smile caresses me. My name trickling across your tongue explodes like fireworks from brain cell to brain cell. Your beauty catches my breath as if you blew gently across my face. I am lost in a sea of you caught up & swept away by everything anything you do. I only a new born father just getting used to the wonder of you being my little girl. ******* MY LITTLE SAPLING! A strand of light blonde hair gently blown back & forth across your amazed face by your own breath held now in wonderment as you watch in the tiny compact world of the pot the first little green hair sprout tentatively from the black earth remembering the time we too planted it not knowing the when or how it would grow into oh... ...such wonder turning your baby blues up at me barely capable of speaking the words your mouth full of awe you explaining it back to me: “It growed...oh...it growed! ” ****** ETERNITY IN A GRAIN OF SAND She takes an old broken cracked conch shell a dried up Corsican starfish sand from her backyard sandpit(slightly damp) dumps them all on her nice clean new sheets. “I’m bringing the seaside to bed! ” she announces her creation (like a little God) . Hours later I peeped in to find her asleep by her seaside Dreaming it...for real. I tuck her & her seaside up gently against the coming cold tiptoe away trying not wake either. *******