Watching My Daughter Through the One Way Mirror of a Preschool Observation Room
       

Maggie's finishing a portrait
of our family, gluing googly eyes
          onto a stately stick figure

I hope is me. Now she doesn't know
who to play with, as other kids,
          posie-pocketed, all

fall down. She wears my face
superimposed. I almost tap
          the glass, point her toward

the boy with yellow trucks.
Lost, she stares out the classroom window
          toward snow-humped pines

beyond the playground.
When I'm dead, I hope there'll be a thin pane
          such as this between us. I'll stand forever

out in the dark to watch my grown children
move through their bright rooms.
          Maybe just once they'll cup

their hands against the glass, caught
by some flicker or glint,
          a slant of light touching their faces.

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Copyright © 2017 Robert Fanning All rights reserved
from Our Sudden Museum
Salmon Poetry
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission