The echo of himself

Beside the window he saw his daughter's crib, the child asleep within, and drawing near he stood over her. Hardly breathing, he stared. He saw the line of her jaw, the small closed lids of her eyes. She is so perfect, he thought, so fresh and new. The moon-light is an angel in whose wings she breathes and sleeps. She was no longer than his forearm, and when he reached down her head fit into the palm of his hand. He smoothed her hair, then drew his hand back and folded his arms over the railing.

Here he beheld her, and in the lovely way of her form he found the echo of himself.

--Shann Ray, "The Way Home," American Masculine (2011)