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    Home › Article › A Moment

    A Moment

    by Judith Sanders
    Preparing grill for grilling, by Frettie. Source: Wikicommons
    March 6, 2023



    While chops sizzle and onions brown,
    the radio intones failures, floods, and fires,
    and the family cries its needs,

    Step out the kitchen door
    Train your eyes on the clouds, 
    rumpled on the darkening sky 

    How big are they, you wonder, 
    and where is that cicada with its kazoo, 
    and the bees that all day probed the flowers?

    How far is that brightest star
    and why does it look like you could
    cup it in your hand? 

    Would it sting like spattered fat?
    Or melt like a chip of ice
    and hiss into vapor?

    How old is the light filtering down
    and will you ever see another night?
    Is anyone else out breathing the damp 

    drifting from the mountains?
    Should you go, wander the streets
    to somewhere you can’t imagine

    A bar, a hotel, a restaurant,
    a grove of firs
    haloed in moonlight?

    The cicada breaks off its song 
    Crows squawk a last goodnight 
    Bats swoop and disappear

    Wipe your hands on your apron
    How long have you stood here?
    Go back inside

    to anchor your husband and child, 
    and turn down the flame 
    before dinner burns.

    Categories: PQ Poem
    Tags:
    Judith Sanders

    Judith Sanders’ poetry collection In Deep was recently published by Kelsay Books. Her work appears in numerous journals, including Pleiades, The American Scholar, and Modern Language Studies; on the websites Vox Populi, Humor Darling, and Full Grown People; and in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. She has a B.A. in literature from Yale, an M.A. in creative writing from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in English from Tufts. She taught English at universities and independent schools, and in France on a Fulbright Fellowship. She lives with her family in Pittsburgh.

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