Not Below

By Mitzi Danielson-Kaslik

The sunlight pours in like rain from the glass panels

Above and cascades itself in the room below.

Why am I always in the room below?

Why am I always seeking, never being?

The sunlight – like this grandiose vision

Of myself which I keep in a little golden

Box atop my heart but below my head –

Is always above, it is always that which is

Reached for, never quite grasped, not for

Long at least, for if you held the sun too

Long, your hands would get burnt.

But, I suppose that that is by price for wanting

Things, my punishment, if you will, for eternally

Following this vision of myself exactly how I want

Myself to be. That either I will have to live eternally

Below (in the room where the sunlight pours in)

Or my hands will be black and blistered.

Unless, perhaps, there is a possibility that if I could

Flirt with the sun, touching it only lightly and putting

My hands in a bucket of ice-cold water between each

Touch, I could behold my vision of me as I want me to be

Just long enough to become it, but not exceed it in

Height, much like hovering adjacent, not below, but

Not above, just beside. Perhaps then, possibility I could

Hold the vision for just long enough, a moment in the sun before I die.

And then the incantation would be complete.

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