Sophie Lynne Creations

One.  

The way a light switch balances

between on and off,

as if there is a world that exists

in the middle. 

A world like the worlds

that exist between moments–

between a rise and fall. 

A grandfather clock swings left

and just for that moment

is stillness. 

Somewhere, a mother listens 

so carefully to her infant’s breathing, 

praying he’ll fall

into sleep. That when she moves her hand

from off of his back and replaces it 

with a shoe, 

his eyes will stay shut.

She holds her breath and

thinks of her first kiss

when it was unclear which way to tilt heads. 

She thinks of the moment before her first orgasm 

as a widow.

She balances in the middle. 

until the switch picks a side

and the baby lets out its wail–

Two.

She lowers herself 

tenderly 

onto a rocking chair 

wooden with arthritis.

Her stained nightgown drapes over

the parts of her that persist–

motherhood from another life. 

Her toes rest on the porch– bare 

and just barely 

enough to to tilt a bit up

so she can sway a bit down. 

She watches a man across the way 

push his daughter on a swing. 

His hand at the bottom of the girl’s back, 

the girl screams. 

Higher!

So the woman on the porch rises up on her toes, 

Higher!

tilting more, 

whitening knuckles,

falling together.

Three.

The conductor swings her hand left,

right. Swaying in place. 

She stills her lifted baton, 

wide-eyed. 

Caesura.

I breathe quietly. 

What does it hold?

More than a comma? 

A semicolon? A man 

clears his throat in the front row. A woman 

recrosses legs.

I track the conductor’s bony wrist, 

ballooning my stomach, 

shifting my hips.

They say muscle weighs more than fat. 

Maybe I have more muscle than her. 

The audience cheers, 

confirming? 

Which is music– the muscle or the fat?

Does my song move into the essential  

or into indulgence?

The risers shift.

I reset my eyes and realize

I never came back in.

Four.

I slapped your arm

as you ate the entire apple core. 

That could kill you!

Crunching on seeds: 

–So could you!

I rolled my eyes and picked the grass, 

peeling each blade

like string cheese,

right down the middle.

I asked you what you wanted for your birthday. 

You said a quality pinecone. To find

one of my favorites 

on one of my runs

and wrap it. You said

it has to be 

truly spectacular. 

So you slept and 

I ran and 

weeks buckled 

into each other.

I think I found the one!

Cheeks rosy, pulling off gloves.

–Did you?

I wrapped it and sang Happy Birthday.

Paper peeled back…

–It’s perfect. 

You put it in your memory box, 

under your bed. I worried it was dark

and cold down there 

and – for a moment – found it all

underwhelming. 

But later I ran around my neighborhood

and began to think

of jean sizes and scales

and I kicked up the hill

even harder

until I saw a pinecone so spectacular, 

that I thought about pinecones instead.