on Liv's second birthday

Matter

It rolls out like a rug, the subject matter
as if someone at the head of the table could make a subject matter,
pluck it from the beginning when matter
was all--king of its own mountain, king of itself, mattering
to no one, really, with no one to claim it from space as black
as night water, black as umbrellas left at coat check. No, blacker--
without stars or reflection. Too dark for eyes to matter.
Black as shoeblack, black as the black box black.
I imagine matter so, just a lump of black. At the start it's always black,
isn't it. No object apart from space, no subject, but no matter.
Nothing has an opposite and it doesn't matter
if there isn't any object or desire. Here is where it began to matter:
I could hold her weight in my two arms. She won't unmatter
now. The sky presses down and I press back, my veil black
as comfort drawn tight. Every small thing that comes from matter
comes to matter. Faster, now a light rain, now a smattering,
now all things swing into view as headlights on the mountain pass, black
startled out of sight by eyes exceedingly bright and blind.