IMOGEN PLAYS OUTSIDE

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Since she was born I have wanted to do this.
Winter has let go; hard air has thawed
and March is playing at being June,
throwing sun on the patio, tempting bushes

to show their buds a little.
I wrap up my baby like a pink-and-blue boulder,
push open the door, give her
to the concrete floor.

She sits, assessing what’s here.
Pressed palms tell her, hard and damp.
A scratch in the mortar brings up dirt:
her fingernail for the first time not white.

She finds a grain of stone, and curls it in
with finger and thumb. Turning it
she traverses a world:
in the light, it glows like a star.

There are more on the border. I say, Gravel.
She crawls to motley yellows, curves and cracks
similar, but no two the same. She leans
and scoops them to her: they write maps

on her palm as she grabs
and lifts them high—
then opens. A thousand tiny suns
clatter and bounce on the ground.