Underneath

Under my shirt is my skin
Under my skin is my heart
Under my heart is my faded torn nightgown I wore for ten
years as it crept up my ankles, then knees, then thighs.
Under that is my mother who took out
the hem out not once or twice
but five times, inching the small seam carefully
because I could not leave behind anything I loved.

Under my heart is my father’s baseball mitt, dangling from my too small hand,
the smack and sting
of ball against palm, seconds before a boy ran past my base.
Under that is the baseball flung out of my hands at my father’s head for
no reason I remember now.
Under that is the silence floating between us
before he said slowly, quietly, “Get in the car.”
And under that is the gap between us now 

that no baseball diamond or box score
can span.

Under my heart is my daughter's icy toes against my shin each dawn,
arms thrown tightly around my neck.
Under that is her whirling spin which makes her dizzy with  joy
Under that is my fear she’ll remember only anger
for her exuberant hula hoop routine or
my curt, “Not now” when she
tried to show me her poem about wind and lonely dinosaurs.

But under that are the waves we surfed, 

a glide right under the tumble

of crazy white froth which carried us
safely
to shore.