Fingernails

I reach into the crib on tiptoe, holding
my breath from the railing in my ribs, angling
the headlamp beam away from her face
so the light doesn't make her look
impersonally angelic. She is the
messenger
of herself, has come to say
she will not keep her hands still when awake.
There is the tick of the wall clock,
her little breathing, and the click
of my clippers. She has come to make
mystical
and fulfilling as religion even these
tasks
of human housekeeping. In the halo's
yellow edge
a frown puckers her face. She
stretches, farts,
and turns to let me reach her other
hand.