Poem: "Daddy's Little Girl"

This poem came out of the November 5, 2013 Poetry Fishbowl.  It was inspired by a prompt from Dreamwidth user Rosieknight.  It also fills the square "a kiss goodnight" in my 10-6-13 card for the Origfic Bingo fest.  This poem has been sponsored by technoshaman.  It belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

Shaeth was exhausted.
He had no idea it would be
so difficult to watch Desdemona
while her mother Agleca
was busy sacking a city.

She fussed and squalled
and demanded to be fed
at inconvenient times.

She also cast dark magic
with no control whatsoever.

"I'm sorry about the mess,"
Shaeth said sheepishly.

"Don't worry, dear," Glenta said
as she swept the last of the dung beetles
into a pan and emptied them into the hearth.
"All infants make messes."

"Well, that's reassuring," Shaeth said.
He knew nothing about infants;
that was the purview of grandmothers,
not gods of evil or alcohol.
As previously instructed,
he shifted his daughter up
so that he could burp her.

Desdemona gurgled
and spit up a blob of acid
that began eating through the rag
that Shaeth had draped over his shoulder.
Hastily he wiped her mouth
and then added the rag to the hearth fire.

Then Shaeth put her down
in the cradle made from half a wine barrel.
A tap of his finger made the mobile spin,
colored glass winking in the firelight.

Shaeth leaned over the barrel
to kiss his daughter good night.
Desdemona smiled at him,
and his heart melted.

She might be the prophesied
Goddess of Evil in waiting (or not)
but for now, she was just a baby,

and he loved her.

* * *

Notes:

The dung beetles are a reference to the joke that God is inordinately fond of beetles.  It's a favorite of mine because it shows the difference between mortal and divine thinking.  Humans get distracted by photogenic megafauna; deities have a finer grasp of environmental detailing.

Desdemona has a very simple wine barrel cradle.  These can also be suspended with ropes, posts, or rockers.

A glass bottle mobile or wind chime may be made with rings, bottom discs, or random pieces.  There are instructions for how to cut wine bottles and how to make wine bottle wind chimes.