Rest the cradle atop the trees.
(I still rock myself when I can’t sleep.)
Avoid most lyrics if she’s still longing.
(Particularly ones about falling.)

If the mockingbird
won’t sing, just remember you silenced
an infant’s screams.
You hushed the saying of a word
(probably her first).
If you buy a billy goat
when her looking glass breaks, a chase
ensues with no final boy or bijou
and goes on, even when she
really
doesn’t want it to.

Induce wordless, infant dreams
with a song about broken things
and a diamond ring turned brass. Cork the bottle
in her youth, and it’ll only fracture when sounds around
her start to matter. Out will billow the absorbed
belief that she is somehow defective. Salty tears and sinking
(to think that bought and broken things
were all that ever happened.)

It’s okay: a saltwater siren must be able to imitate
to mock her lusting land-bound prey.
If you wanted a woman you shouldn’t have clipped
the kid’s wings and told her to be tame.
I know girls who were seen and not heard;
they will dive beneath the waves. Sink or swim,
they look too thin. I don’t know who to blame.

Silence is actually silver.
And fool’s gold is worth much less.
I’d make a cruddy mother so I take back what I said.
Branches swing. With kin we freeze—rarely fight or fly.
What are words worth anyway when there’s an end
to every line? Maybe not much. Maybe you’re right.
Forgive bough and breeze if she dies inside.
Perhaps the most loved lullabies
are just melodies
and lies.