Speech Crush

… who spoke late
echolalic, then in similes,
by the lake,
where the sticks were her
long mosquitoes, her lava
pyramid brown rice.
Got a crush on a suffix,
giggled, blushed,
at every -tion. And there were
many, in conversation,
flirting with her.
Pre-dejection.
Pseudoabstraction.
As she grew into
orchestration, a white
sport coat and a pink
carnation, crenellation,
inhalation—
had I known
too much lamentation?
I, who have lived
isolation, seen sun
as lion,
its mane’s
diffusion; offered her
a turnip moon,
close-shaven.
Parental anomaly,
weird shared ions.
A word-prescription.
A nerve-ending infatuation.
I’m blessed
she’s the termination of me,
last blood relation.
Daughter, if you follow land
to its suffix, there’s ocean,
which I know your toes,
bare, still-growing, slim,
will never shun.