Dissolve

"I'm trying to write a poem that will alert me to my real life,
a poem written in the natural speech of the breakfast table,
of a girl spooning yogurt, pausing, the spoon held aloft
while she gestures toward the exact turning of her thought.

It would have to be a poem dense with ordinary detail
the way the sun, spilling across walnut and balled-up napkins,
can pick out cups, plates, the letter from which someone has just read aloud,
with evenhanded curiosity, leaving behind a gloss of pleasure."

- Jane Cooper, 'Ordinary Detail'

"Hurry up or you'll be late", her mother says.

The child knows better.

Alert as an alchemist, the child measures out each teaspoon of sunlight, adds it to the glass. Stirs it vigorously till the water shines with a dissolved brilliance. Till the water becomes a co-conspirator, and the spoon winks back at her, trying not to laugh.