Father's Sonnet

Mechanic's hours and grocery aisles. The
laundry, the wine, and the in-laws. Rainwater.
Eggs. Tylenol. Oh broad and unreasonable
swaths of life, I want more
goddamn grace, more grace. She is finally
a ballet, a stumbling near-language.
She will say the world soon
the way no one ever exactly
has. And the boy, her brother,
colors his way into corners
only to backflip out, crawing --
like a crow sketching
a broad, imaginary chest.
The only thing that could ruin
the good, grabbed, goosefleshed world
is the too loud voice uttering
the wrong word, wrong time
from me, Fatherhood Unfurling.
And you ask me why I call poetry
the most practical art, prayer's
pushup, and you ask me why
I sing a blues of not singing it
while washing my hands, my cups, my eyes.
The sink fills up, splashes, spills
as a speech that risks more than the silence, too,
that kills.