☀ Today's Poem: "of Light" (excerpt) Danielle Vogel

What is time when the body can hold the experience of another's living?
In what time does healing occur?

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I'm in my grandparent's basement. My childhood self is hiding and doesn't want to be found. I go upstairs, no one seems to be home, so I walk through all the rooms. I sit down at the desk to write myself a letter to find later. In the kitchen, the green rotary phone. I want to call my aunt, but I'm not sure what time I'm in. My grandparents, my mother, and I come in from shopping. They unpack their bags as if I'm not there. They're cutting up a loaf of semolina, salting the warm mozzarella. My grandfather is about to make sauce from the garden's plum tomatoes. I'm watching them eat. I'd like to stay. My childhood self is eating chunks of pecorino. Broccoli rabe. I can't hear what they're saying. They don't see me.
I look around the backyard at all the places I love. The gnarled knuckles of the crab apple trees. The statue of Mary in the crescent of cedars I like to talk to. The place where only moss will grow. The ugly dog next door.
I ask my mother if she'd like to go for a drive. There's a loop—we're backing out of the driveway—it's taking a long time to happen. I'm nervous because I don't want to fight with her. The scene is stuck, she is not really there. I grab her by the arms. I'm shaking her. Yelling. Why isn't she seeing me. I feel overwhelmed yelling her name, Mom, over and over again. She pales, disappears and I'm left throwing a tantrum by myself.

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Transfixed together. Rooted in a delicate, invisible repatterning of light.