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She holds a branch of foliage in her hand.
She detaches the leaves and throws them
to the ground one by one. Each time she
very carefully explores the trajectory. The
same day she alternately moves a strainer
away from her and brings it toward her.
—Jean Piaget, 1954
And then a beam of afternoon light invades
The room where he is studying this girl,
Jean Piaget, that is, who would later tell
What it is that's happening when a child awakens
Within the crystalline clarity of consciousness
And she discovers not only the frog, sitting
Still as a noun beneath the fallen bed of leaves,
But also, its sour little greenness, and also,
Her white little hand reaching out to grab it,
To take it closer to her eye, or to her wet mouth,
Or not, and then, to toss it back, away,
Like one other little object in this playground
Called space, or, as Piaget would explain it,
This vast field of groups of displacements.
Nothing else is being born yet. Only me,
Myself, studying this field of displacements.
Crossing and uncrossing my legs in the late
September warmth on a Tuesday afternoon
While sipping a glass of white wine, and feeling
Its seductive warmth coating my stomach.
The me and the not me, working forwards and
Backwards, between the terminals of selfhood
As I learn that a child's father in just one of the
Objects of displacement a child sees, becomes
A part of, comes close to or parts with, or not.
And so I reach out and grab her, pull her soft
Cheeks to mine and I kiss them till she wiggles
Apart again, and throws herself to the leaves.
And then I feel full again, I belong to her again,
Which makes my eyes squint, as if to see her,
Or me, or whatever else exists in the field of
Father and daughter becoming father with daughter.
Nothing else is being born yet. Only her, and me,
And the full afternoon light that's disguising the
Future, which is, I presume, the light rays of
The everything she's going to fly into, her life,
One day, quicker than I know it. Only that, and
This book by Jean Piaget, which I bought for
Her and me, five years before I knew her and me.
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