Caroline Heaton

I am five and it is my first long word
copied from the folded school card.
I print it out again at home,
sucking the sweet red lead,
pressing into the rough sugar-paper
the shape of a day;
now I have caught the future —
it lies quivering within its paper frame,
luminous with colour.

I tremble with pride, writing the world,
never dreaming of the cracks
it slips through, the spaces
between word and word.