“If there was a way
to be sure he’ll never find us, I’d feel better
about all this,” she said to me
as she tied a ribbon onto her daughter’s present,
evening the ends
and taking scissors to them to curl them
so they lofted, just a bit,
and bounced when she let them go.
When our backs were turned
the ribbons gave one languid flap
and the box
rose and
soared around the room, not quickly
but deliberately, moving among
the scattered boxes, avoiding the just-placed
new knick-knacks that were much the same
as the old, broken ones she’d left behind
on the night she raised the little girl from bed
and took the two of them away from
the ruins.
It hovered by each
unmarked wall, blessed
the unlisted phone for a moment
with a near-kiss, slipped off to the bedroom
and drifted over their clean beds.
“I wish
I knew something about hope —
how to find it, how to make it stay
for more than an odd breath,”
she said with one hand out
gesturing at the new walls, new TV, new
shelves, and not a fist in sight.
She looked down at the present
(suddenly back in its place
with its travels undiscovered)
with its floating ribbons and perfect creases,
and smiled
for the first time that day. “She’s gonna love
that, I know. It’s nothing big, but she’ll love it.”
She brushed back the hair
from her bruised cheek.
The box — was it a trick
of the light? — the box shook a little,
its wrapping rustling.
Dark Matter 