It was after 10:30 at night. I was surrounded by towers of nondescript apartment complexes over 20 stories high, though the middle courtyard was graced with beautiful trees hiding maze-like walkways ... [+]
Matt Dennison is the author of Kind Surgery, from Urtica Press (Fr.) and Waiting for Better, from Main Street Rag Press. "Passing from the Light I Glimpse" was originally published in Saranac Review. It is now a part of Short Édition's series, The Current.
Originally published in Saranac Review
Passing from the light, I glimpse my daughter in the midnight kitchen glow, dipping ice-cream for herself alone—the bending hand smooth above surface perfection holds room but no need for a dark father's thoughts on one so sharp she must cut the world or shutter. Don't you dare grow sleepy with meaningless labor so young! I long to shout as with her hands great secrets of grief and a grieving, not death's, but a dying with beauty's right speed are wrung. For when pain comes and suffering casts its shadow in brilliant relief, the tides of sleep will swirl the giddy fringe of night so taken by i