Glass On Glass

Monday I am your best friend filling your red wagon with 23 speckled glass marbles, sitting like indians and drawing circles in sand, laughing at tiny collisions. Tuesday I am your mother, leaving your father screaming in the doorway, filling your questions with silence and your hunger with soup-kitchen cereal and homeless-shelter beds. Wednesday I am the teenage arm around your waist, the hair beneath your hands, an echo of the pounding bass. You float in a cloud of bliss or lilac perfume. Thursday I am the the woman next door getting the newspaper in a fraying coral robe— so desperately angry—leaning over a fence to shake one withered finger at your child’s infernal noise. Friday I am your daughter clutching a lollipop in one sticky hand, your pant leg in the other, dancing on your toes, laughing. “Why are you smiling, Daddy?” Saturday I am your best friend gripping the rails of a hospital bed. I am shudders and weak reassurance, a spindly hand in yours, and the long-forgotten clink of glass on glass.