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Crooked Star
Hours before my death, I tiptoe through
the house where everyone sleeps, sit on the porch beneath the stars.
I can't see the ocean, but I hear waves on the shore, coming again,
again, like my beating heart. Until soon, when the beating will stop
keeping time with waves, and there will be nothing more than sand on
shore receiving the press of the ocean.
I breathe in the cool, moist air. It
kisses my face like I kissed everyone goodnight in the hours before
my death. My granddaughter, whose blonde curls I wiped behind her
ears as I my lips feathered her nose, eyes, delicate pink lips, and
tucked her in. Then, sleeping in the bed I once shared, my daughter
and her husband, her arm folded across his chest as he rhythmically
snored.
Outside - me, ocean, stars. I
remember the first stars I'd seen as a girl from a pier on that
lake in New Hampshire. The name escaped me years ago, but I still
feel myself lying back upon wood staring into heavens. The night sky
was a dome and I was safe in the ball of the world with no edge to
fall off of, just a slope down to the next grassy field.
That's when I saw my first shooting
star, and second, third. Loons called across the shining lake and I
watched night lights stream through the sky.
I look tonight for shooting stars, but
my eyes are not what they used to be and the stars are fainter.
Tonight's sky is flat, and for the first time in all these years, I
am scared again of the edges of the world. Knowing I am on the verge
of me and not knowing when I will fall through the sky, my own
crooked star.
Heidi Schulman Greenwald, Wednesday
workshop, Fall 2006
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