artwork: judith connor
GOING
THROUGH DAYS ON TIPTOE
by
Linda Back McKay
How
the light is born in
morning,
how it is trapped
in
your bulb at night.
How
you can’t win
if
you don’t enter,
even
if it means
standing
in a line
that
snakes around
the
block, a conga,
but
without the music.
How
you are given
another
chance,
even
if it is just
a
Monopoly card,
and
you take it.
How
you eat cottage
cheese
on saltines
in
honor of your father
and
your mother’s
greasy
gravy.
How
the mirror
becomes
philosophical
and
you try to envision
a
world of kindness while
you
are completely, one
hundred
percent alone.
How
quiet things
are
now, as a feather
makes
landfall.
How
you just never
know.
You just
never
know when
a
light will go out.
~
first published in White Pelican Review
