AN INVISIBLE FLUVIAL ZOO
laura lehew
After the phone call luring me home, after I buried Janice’s husband, after I visited Marie, lately resurrected from three weeks in a drug induced coma, after the cold, after dealing with little sister’s dementia, dad’s Alzheimer’s, after the flu, after I was my nephew’s daily respite care giver, after special Olympics, being pulled over and narrowly escaping a speeding ticket (which I’m sure I deserved), after Vicki’s double mastectomy, Mark’s father-in-law’s cancer exploding out of the liver and into nodes and bones; after I got a late check-out, had lunch, navigated the rental’s return, and somehow got to the airport early, after all that, I came to be a pebble lodged within the aquifer—I did not standby in hope of an earlier flight, didn’t sail through the airport dodging kiosks, loose children, baggage.
Laura LeHew
laura@deer-run.com
The Door
Margaret Atwood