Over my journal
and a pen’s ink swell,
I spilled a sonnet
across a sanded oak welcome.
Once I wiped up
this iambic mess, the stressed
and unstressed syllables
stained my right palm.
Through a doorway, I pressed
fourteen lines
onto my daughter’s
left bedtime cheek.
Under a butter spread
of sunlight, she awoke
with poetry
singing inside her mind.