She asks: “Am I getting taller?”
She is my daughter.
A woman. Full grown.
She is not getting taller.
I look down at her
As we hug goodbye.
Not so far down now.
Closer eye to eye than we once were.
“No,” I say. “I am getting smaller.”
She has noticed that
I am not what I once was.
The years have whittled me down by inches.
Once I was a giant.
Or so I imagined.
But she has found me out.
Seen it with her own eyes.
I am a man.
Merely.
Diminished.