What would the consequence be? Who is at fault? The painter looking into her box can only choose what she sees there. She cannot be held accountable for what she does not see. I think of this often. What of her family? What of the choices made for her before she could know? She cannot be held accountable here, either.
The birds of the sky, the gulls of the air, obsequious and partial to parroting. I cannot see them any other way than over the moon. Alas, I do not want to be over the moon.
As far as I can see, the world spins into the open. The world opens like a melon into the absolute, and I can hardly take it. As much as grace is gone, that melon drops from the table into the first chair on the left. Why not the right? That would be too wrong. I want to find the string to tie the world together again. My mother is there. My father is there. My brother and sister are there. A missing family, in transition. But I can’t make the world close up again.
Laura Carter lives in Atlanta, GA, where she finished her M.F.A. in 2007. She has since published numerous chapbooks, individual poems, and book reviews.
Image: “Afternoon Moon” by Alex J. Tunney
Pine Hills Review 