Kira Waking

Eamon Grennan

She breaks from her dream crying I want to be a ballerina! Her dolls are sprawled all over
the cot, eyes open or shut, each one a dancing partner. Picturebooks
lie open on the floor, their dancers
in pink and white and blue pastels balanced like spinning-tops or weathervanes. Her new musicbox will open to Fleur-de-lis and a tiny girl turning on one flamingo leg, her arms forever stretched, on point
forever. My child cries into my face her raw desire to be a dancer, then twists back to sleep, her two years
a chafe and swirl of mostly speechless longing, her breath getting lighter. And afterwards I lie in the dark
with eyes wide open, the black monkey whose eyes are lustrous sapphire and agate smouldering against my chest and
tense shoulders, his babypaws
stroking my throat
where the leashed blood
sleeplessly beats, turns back, dances.