I buy my white daughter a black doll

and she cries and she sleeps and she rides

through our kitchen in a pink stroller. She takes

a tiny bottle in her pursed lips, and every night

she takes a bubble bath. As my daughter drapes

a washcloth across her brown shoulders

and down the delicately curved back, I think

about the man I loved years ago—his elbows,

his knees, those ashy places I caressed without

understanding—and how his mother told me

make sure he moisturize, as if she agreed I had

any business caretaking his body in a country

that would rather see him dead. What do I

think I can teach my daughter, especially when

I've still learned so little? Only that we might all

be transformed by our own unknowing love.

Source: All Its Charms (BOA Editions, Ltd, 2019)