For Another Day
2 Poems by D. L. Gollnitz
Insomnia
Behind bedroom blind
a celestial ball aglow
Bright white light
Morning, noon, night?
Unnerved, sleep disturbed
bright white light
Sun, Moon, lamp?
Behind bedroom blind.
Time
Passes
Slowly
Sleepless
Behind bedroom blind
No celestial ball, no glow.
No sleep, no light
Yawn to dawn.
Morning gray hangs heavy
Close branches fill
silhouettes askew in black
Earth invisible beyond
Where lies the garden
beauty blurred
Stillness broken with alarm
blaring out a new day
Behind bedroom blind
clouded celestial ball
filtered sun through gray
in morning fog
Pinata and Goldfish
I want to play in my room, he says.
You can go upstairs and play.
But there’s no stripes on the walls —
Peter, James, and John aren’t there!
Oh that room, the smaller one.
My words — no comfort.
Six years fierce and face set stern,
crystal blue pools fill with tears.
His sloppy sniffs syncopate
to shutters of his shoulders.
A clammy hand reaches mine.
I smile; he leads the way upstairs.
In the bedroom without stripes
Nothing swims in the fish tank.
We stand still, patient, and calm.
With pink cheeks still wet with tears
He points over the windows
where an empty ceiling hook waits.
From an unpacked moving box
He pulls the pinata
A gift from Daddy’s Mexico trip.
He raises the bull up high
for me to place the colors
on a hook exactly where they hung
In the bedroom with striped walls
where Peter, James, and John swam
happily in their glass home.
Why do prior homeowners
leave ceiling hooks near windows
In children’s rooms, in homes we choose?
On his bed with Teddy Bear,
he smiles at vibrant colors.
I unpack the box; fish food,
air pump, tri-colored rocks.
The empty aquarium
will wait for another day.
And goldfish will come to stay.
D. L. Gollnitz is a former educator, author of three published novels — including her latest Private Family Business (A Waverly Consultants Novel), and quilter. She was born in New England and now lives in the Midwest with her husband.