Jeff Burt

Enleafed like a rolled cocoon
my daughter rests dormant
from her all-night college study,
dry toast hardened like brick
and cup with clotted chocolate.
The bed remains made
beneath her. I watch
the blanket swell and ebb
in long undulations with each breath,
as the ocean she is
has exhausted itself in high tide
and now lies still in retreat.

I would have liked to leave her there
wrapped for the months it takes
a butterfly to wake adorned
with colorful wings,
but she had school,
I had work.
With the first gentle stroke
of my palm she stretched, stirred.
I had broken childhood.
She would emerge an adult.