STUDYING PHYSICS WITH MY DAUGHTER

For years now I have heard the cracking
of my memory, reluctantly falling apart
like an ancient building. At first, a little cement

dust, then portions of the wall—The Natural
Resources Of Brazil, the Shape Of Utah—nothing
at first, that left me structurally unsound,

but it grew to a steady pouring—Co-efficients,
Particples, and Tammany Hall—lying in
the chilly basement of my mind mixed up together.

This went on for years, no matter how much
I paid bricklayers an hour, the slow habits of love
like shadows sliding across the yard each day,

and putting children to bed every night
like the relentless caress of wind on the foundation.
They wore me down to vague certainties.

That’s why, when Molly came in her blue flannel shirt
and baggy jeans, holding her physics book,
I was surprised. I hardly recognized my child

Rolling up her sleeves in the sharp daylight,
Hauling enormous words into the sun,
Slapping them together with new mortar

So fast I could barely get the idea. Do you know,
She asks, why water climbs a paper napkin?
She says water and the napkin both have Partial Charges.

She says the word Cohesion and the word Adhesion.
Her words fall into the rubble in my poor memory.
I tell her, I used to believe in Physics.

But experience has taught me what makes water
climb a paper napkin. The water loves the napkin
and longs for it. My daughter turns her brilliant eyes

on me. She is the only teacher who can save me.
She goes to work, digging in the rubble.