Expecting

The sound below of laughter boisterous
Together now, then scattered, singular
As the small one creeps up stairs to sidle near,
Too new a branch to burn long unassisted.

The silent fluttering within
Gives the sweetness of her tousled head
Against my arm a kind of salty tang.
She warms with quickened ease now,
A touch, a shift, the blaze renews,
Straining for embers more rarely
The light less borrowed or shared,
Smoldering from fissures unseen.

So soon to be her own and not of mine!
And while this quickening draws,
Stirring and pulling at the frame,
Yet still the yearning it drafts
Clings again to the earlier branch
And is the more consumed.
Too bright for pain, the mesmerizing flames
Mine, less so with every flare.
The searing dear to yield such wonder.