Maryanne Stahl

I Wake Up Teetering

The bed is empty except for me. Queen size; it could hold a royal assortment of jelly. A toaster. Tea service.

I wake up on the edge of the mattress, teetering. The dog is looking at me funny. Outside the window, the moon smirks. Owls and possums taking bets.

On the nightstand, a wary glass of water sloshes toward center. The lamp remains fixed in the off position, un-illuminating. Books piled helter skelter refuse to topple. Still, everything looks angled from my half-suspension over the patient green carpet.

In my dream, he had me cornered. But the corners here are filled with the forgotten. Only Fitzgerald’s dark night of the soul and everything Stephen Hawking warns is harmful about existence. Nothing new. No one here. Lots of space I can choose to inhabit.

What am I waiting for?

~~

Maryanne Stahl is the author of novels THE OPPOSITE SHORE and FORGIVE THE MOON, published by New American Library, as well as a chapbook of poetry and flash fiction, ELECTRIC URGENCY, published by Pudding House Press.  She lives in Thunderbolt, Georgia.