by Kathy Karlson
Little can make up for this gray, heavy, day.
Exceptions come up, though:
Your left forearm on the table
While you make your way
Through salad and book;
That story about your mother taking down the tree house
So other boys couldn’t steal the wood;
The shadows of shaking leaves on our floor;
And then the wild memory of the shore and the lake–
the sliding light and the happy cries.