The owls are close tonight
and the barn cat’s not yet
come in. You step outside
and stare into the darkness
willing your eyes to see him,
dark shape near the barn
so you can go walk with him
up the hill to the house.
Owl talk. Owl hunger.
Sometimes, you just need
someone to walk with you,
tell you you’re worth
walking out into the dark for,
tell you what you’ve done right,
for once, leaving out
your less admirable traits,
and those times when you
failed outright.
Sometimes, you just need
to walk into the dining room
and flick on the little lamp
on the oak sideboard,
and have its light comfort you,
the lamp’s base made
of a tapered blue Ball jar
that was your grandmother’s
and most likely traveled with her,
covered wagon to Dust Bowl
and back home again to Indiana.
Jar she filled with tomatoes
or green beans, year
after year, and which now,
holds only decoratively,
a handful of buttons
from her button tin, and wears
its demure shade like a hat.
Instead of her disapproval
you need to see the small bubbles
in the pale, old glass,
not as flaws, but as indications
of vintage, of uniqueness
and usefulness over time.
Who doesn’t want to be seen
that way? Sometimes, you just need
to walk into the dining room,
turn on that little lamp
and have it fill you with light.
Fiction - ISSUE #28