Well She Was Just Seventeen

Perhaps you’ve never kissed your
First Daughter on her first day
Home from her first car ride, first
Smile, first everything, and peeked in
To watch her sleeping like a tea cup resting
In a china cabinet you only open
On Thanksgiving Day and wondered, simply
Wondered.

Perhaps you’ve never asked, How will I do this
And how will I do that and how WILL I do this
And what and why and questioned only to find
Answers, are there answers, that only lead to more
Questions with no just-right answers.

Perhaps you’ve never held those tiny china
Doll cheeks in your soap cracked hands
And wondered who would have let you leave
A hospital with a perfect globe of truthfulness.

Perhaps, though, you have done and said
And thought all this and more and then asked
What else more? Nothing but this.
Nothing but this.