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      August 26, 2021AloftHeidi Williamson

      Image: “Waste” by Lynn Tait. “Aloft” was written by Heidi Williamson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, July 2021, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.

      Overcome space, and all we have left is Here.
      Overcome time, and all we have left is Now.
      —Richard Bach, Jonathan Livingston Seagull

      My mother reads distances like light.
      She can balance atoms from the sea in the cup of her hand:
      those strange creatures beneath the surface of being,
      she owns them too. They come home to her
      while I linger at the window again watching.
       
      While I linger at the window again watching,
      the moment hefts itself off its hinges and swings away into light.
      This isn’t a dream. It’s what happens in the day if you look closely enough.
      There’s my mother in the sunset, the sunset that goes nowhere
      like it’s somewhere. I can knock at the light, but she can’t let me in.
      I can knock until my knuckles bleed, but her pain won’t open for me.
      The ridges in my fingers swell like waves with the pain
      of not holding her hand, not being able to.
       
      Not holding her hand, not being able to:
      it isn’t because of the virus, though there’s that too. I’ve never
      been able to hold her close. The same way atoms move
      because you witness them—your presence disturbs them into action.
      My mother would open and close her mouth on the silences
      above and below. When I say I love my mother what do I mean.
       
      When I say I love my mother what do I mean. Meaning hovers
      like a bird pinned before the factory of thought. Do I mean?
      I can assemble atoms into pictures that all contain my mother.
      I say I love but what. There is light. There are windows.
      This is the moment we have passed.