The actual title of the poem. This is Bohr’s formulation of the observer effect, that simply observing a phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon.
I saw my daughter yesterday,
tangled hair red from her shoulders
to the base of her spine, blonde-rooted.
When she was small,1 it was white.
I delivered him late, with long nails.
I slipped when cutting them, licked
the speck of blood. My tears
sprinkled his fuzzed head.
Slow to start, I saw her grow
as fast as I could measure his height
stopping only when she needed
to bend to kiss my forehead.
For her fourth birthday, she asked us
for a Barbie doll. His dad and I
laughed, said don’t believe
everything adverts sell you.
Boys’ playground games were alien
to her, standing alone at the edge.
She didn’t like colouring,
teachers told him it’s a treat
for the good boys and girls.
They didn’t know she’s colourblind,
didn’t care. Not all children like
colouring, I told him. It’s OK.
When Spider-man fought
for his life, she wept on my lap,
anxious about the tears
in his new finely-sewn costume.
I see my daughter now, peeking
from behind my son’s eyes.
I see my daughter, and I don’t know
what equation describes her.
Note 1: The line “when she was small” read “when she was a boy” in previous versions of this poem. That is incorrect and I have therefore changed it. My younger child was never a boy, although they had been socialised as one.