She sits at the kitchen table
dutifully diagramming sentences
inscrutable indirect objects and those pesky prepositions
(or are they adverbs?)
But I am diagramming
the way the light glints in her hair
as she carefully shapes cursive,
brow furrowed
but eyes darting to the window
as a bolt of lightning fingers its way to the ground
(we must count the seconds til the thunder)
She is not a noun…nouns are too concrete.
She is ethereal, fleeting — perhaps an adjective?
She closes her book (independent clause)
stands expectantly (adverb) by me (preposition)
begins a hug but then perches on my lap
I stroke her hair
still damp from a lunchtime dare to stand in drenching rain
Adverbs bubble up—warmly, happily, curiously, boldly
I am punctuation.
A pause, a stop, an exclamation.
And she? She is a verb
an action
laugh, leap, do, dare.