Hover Between
Published by Zone 3, November, 2018
From a narrow window, the full moon illuminates your bathtub,
and you recall the licentiousness of water, his hand on your leg,
his other hand holding a camera. You know you’re craving,
yet like a swooping bird, your mind snatches never-resting aches:
Your ninety-year-old grandmother in her country club's card room,
trying to join a game with her friends. They make no place for her.
She’ll laugh at opponent’s bids or peek at their cards. Almost invisible,
she idles in heavy indifference behind the ugly plaid covered chairs
softly singing, “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers.” You wonder,
are her youthful dreams still unfinished or is this her preference
in the galaxy of remembering? You notice the wallpaper geraniums
change color from pink to dark purple and your heart stirs not from fear
but from the bareness of trees in winter. A frost turns your vision
cold and the stubborn end is present. As if snow-blinded, you swerve
into flawlessness. You’re holding your son’s baby close, her skin
offers flower petals, a deluge of earth’s milk, and you understand
the simplicity of floating on water, the structure of seed-bearing plants.
You breathe in the aroma of waking up, a tenuous air, thick
with the gap between now and childhood. Your pet, sleeping on your chest,
moves with your breath, his golden fur against the morning light.