Peter Stillman

Brushing

While God hunts souls

to throw into Heaven,

I go on brushing my daughter’s hair

longer than the need.

I gather a mass of it.

“Hold still,” I say.

I see his eye at the window,

rapt and predatory,

while I brush my child’s warm hair.

The brushing soothes me.

Why should it end? We both brush,

she with her fingers, over and over

across the secret mind,

until the hair draws up

the pale glow of all her life

and his going bends the million daisies

in our field.