The site is hard dirt and raw wood,

two-by-fours stark on blue air -- a ladder

divides the first and second floors.

I’m twelve, your daughter, and

I can walk through walls.

You check angles, cradle vistas,

assign placement of electrical outlets.

In the master bath the basin of

a porcelain vanity’s filled

with sawdust and leaves.

Below the unpaned window,

men with mud-caked jeans and boots

sit on truck bumpers sipping sweetened coffee.

Their names are Jimmy, Dick, Scott, Jimmy Jr.

At the site on Saturdays through the fall,

I clamber over scaffolds, toss sweaters or

hats on nonexistent chairs, opening doors

not yet hinged, or there --

the air smells like donuts and pine.

You unroll plans on a saw-horse table,

sip easily from a steaming paper cup,

review elevations -- sheet after sheet

exposes rooms closer to the breadth of sky.

I want to know where everyone will sleep.

*

Once I woke as you were painting

a woman with brown hair and

almond-shaped eyes, larger than life,

she paled on the deep coral canvas.

The arc of her lips, pacific,

serene as your own

the afternoon you died.

It was odd you didn’t paint a nose

yet it was clear that next morning

when she was still wet,

she could breathe.