Backward

At seven they reckon you’re too old
for adoption. And I look on your head
so clinically tiny and lost within
that bicycle helmet, four years
behind in letters and numbers;
your inside out and backward dress
patterned with pie and snot and think
on all the words that you’ll forget
before the page is turned again,
on doors slammed shut and fingers bit,
the three-year-old strops your fists
can’t stop and spit now surely
that must count for something?