No more than two generations from Ellis Island,
tanned Amazon of the casinos, in her mid-fifties—
her sons run a pizza business maybe; or maybe
she’s an upscale shoobee who owns on the beach-block,
priest or rabbi for a son, catered holidays,
comped at the Casino. Registered Republican,
vocal, with a pack-a-day growl, she rouses herself
out of People because some infant two blankets over,
inconsolable, crying himself breathless,
has turned Wedgwood blue and is sucking air
while tall freaked Pop looks on, Mom a wreck.

Seigniorial she rises, claps sand, strides over,
then bends and sweeps up the pale blue baby
and teaches it its first world. The sun and the sky
love you, the clouds love you, even the gulls
and the dogs—see the gulls, see the dogs, honey bun?
and even the sand loves you. Even the sand!
The baby looks up at her with a startled joy,
and so do I. Who is this strange magician?
When he is older, will he remember? Will some odd precision
between today and some future summer day,
the way the sky runs through its afternoon declensions,
the clouds reconjugating and sunlight stacked
in barrels of clouds, remind him of a certain super Being
who once brought him endless joy, how the warmth of her arms
and breasts as she rocked and sang him from sad to happy
filled him slowly with her own hot life, and made him laugh?