May 3, 2022

little worlds

In her kitchen, Gloria pours us each a cup of coffee, asks if I want anything in mine.
Cream, sugar - the usual. I resist the urge to pretend I am reuniting with my grandmother,
in the same way I tell myself the hummingbird sipping at the feeder is probably not
my father, and the 6-year-old riding her new bicycle isn’t the child I never got around
to having. But what can I say? I want to spackle each absence with its opposite -
the vivid buzz of French roast, a frenetic dance above a dish of syrupy water, maternal
glee at Gilly’s courage. It is too hard to imagine what’s gone being gone forever. So what
if the little worlds I pretend into being won’t last either, the coffee running cold, the bird
abandoning the scene for Mexico come winter, the girl growing out of her shoes?
I wrap my hands around the mug until they touch. I watch the sky for the sound of wings.