Thoughts from a Thinking Girl

I awoke in the endless stretch of 4 am, pre-dawn the longest span of pre-anything.

The capacity to measure, surely, exists only when upright, eyes open to see the mark

we place next to the beginning, the line we draw when we determine the end.

Flat on my back, turning to one side then the other, I burrowed for sleep

which I did not reach. You’d think I dug through dirt tunnels with my eyes

for their weight and weary scratchiness, their feeling bruised and swollen,

as if the impossible had happened and they’d finally outgrown their sockets

and paper thin eyelids, defying the truth that, never growing, never shrinking,

we grow into our eyes, mature around them, every bone in our skull expanding

until we lose that Margaret Keane magnetism, the fawn/puppy/yearling/infant

innocence that triggers tenderness.

Thank you, for this small reminder that today begins with all types of readiness, bright

light only minutes ahead of dark clouds, strong winds knocking the branch against the window.

Less sand remains in the hourglass — yes that hourglass —piling up in its ever-increasing

mound below, all memories a little scratchy, roughing the tender skin between my toes.

That day we walked barefoot along the Semiahmoo spit, feet bluing with cold, neither wanting

to admit, surrender, give in, the folly of trying to keep up, the way we rubbed and rubbed

the sand-crusted soles we couldn’t feel, not knowing how long it would take, first numbness,

then tingling, then pain, unmeasurable, losing sight of when we chose this love

and when we began to burrow our way out.