Janice D. Soderling
COMPACT LIVING AND OTHER HABITS
I slide from dreams to morning,
from the past to a smaller room.
My children are still sleeping
as they slept years ago.
Small puffs of breath push softly
onto white pillow slips. Bright
sunlight skews on early disarray:
toys, schoolbooks,
a broken red crayon.
The kitchen, like me, expectant
of yawns, jostling, laughter.
The scrape of chairs. Same old jabbering.
Familiar smells of coffee, bacon, toast.
Milk splashing into tall glasses.
Such busyness, such bustling.
One suspended moment
just before I wake,
I am needed, necessary,
my mind caught in the grasp
of memory's small hands.
Janice D. Soderling is a past contributor to The Innisfree Poetry Journal. Her fiction, poetry, translations and essays appear regularly in online and print journals in several countries. Recent and forthcoming work at Anon, Blue Unicorn, Centrifugal Eye, Hobble Creek Review, Literary Bohemian, Lucid Rhythms, Mannequin Envy, NewVerseNews, Orbis, Stirring, Prick of the Spindle, and Umbrella Journal.
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