The Falling Down Dance

Martin's lines are a brief as breath, and cloister us at home, in winter, where the tiny everyday ministrations of love and parenthood are magnified and abundant with meaning.

I wanted to tell you something

About the shipwreck

Of fatherhood, of motherhood, the coarse

Sugar leaving us

Shook. Soft wreck of the baby

Greeting each kiss

With an open

And drooling mouth, reflex

We don't understand

Heart-blip stuck

Tipping my finger

On the keys, speeding

Memory of yesterday out

The window I'm

Pushing barely open

Chris Martin is the author of American Music (Copper Canyon, 2007) and Becoming Weather (Coffee House Press, 2011).