agnes, again. / Mimine | poetry by Lorelei Bacht

agnes, again.
 
the delicate bizarreries of our 
four-year-old girl: you do not know 
my finger's name, she sings in the bathtub. 
 
pinching my nose, plucking my pies, pine 
needles in her hair, a stream 
of poetic nonsense, stubborn 
and muddy-toed. gold 
 
ringlets and a terrifying knack for grudge
in the long run, yet as changing 
as clouds in spring magpieing one, two, five, 
gingersnaps in her mouth. marbles 
 
snail shells, petals in her pockets, stories 
of sky-walking – and this evening, 
an important query: what is 

the smell of my heart? silence: 

I watch her moonlit face, delight that I 
live to see grandmother reborn
with sticky little hands. 

Mimine 
 
cloud-shaped night-light, we read 
the clock in retrospect: I discover 

an earlier blueprint 
of grandma’s hands in yours. 

when I happened, she was glasses, 
hair dye, teacups, long past 

sixty-four: I had missed 
all of her previous hands: 
 
her twenty-something hands, restless 
little bird wings, soft still, and too 

trusting. her forty-something hands,
busy bathing babies, folding 

napkins, stirring tomato soup. 
you scald before you peel. I only knew 

of her old hands, pin pokes and calluses, 
sewing pretty, uncomfortable dresses. 
 
now, you born with the same 
prints, exactly. easily recognisable despite 

the sudden subtraction of six decades –  
my tender miniature 

of a lioness.


In French, “mimine” is an affectionate term used to refer to little children’s hands.