Moments
she is held, at peace
as a drowsing newborn
in mother’s cradle.
Contented
she drifts,
somewhere within that elusory space
where breaths
are yet untroubled,
where ostensible sights and sounds
lull –
in that lovely place
where beloved still dwell.
It is the place
where all is well,
 
where dad still sits at the table
beneath a hazy cloud,
leafing through the morning paper
between lazy puffs,
shuffles of his calloused feet
across the laminate floor
a stable melody.
It is the place
where mom still bustles
around her familiar kitchen,
the privileged observer cadenced
by a perfect harmony
of whirs
and hums
and metal clangs
as she bakes her bread.
 
It is the beautiful, elusive realm
of possibility,
its transient visions and symphonies.
It is the Eden of Adam
before the bitter taste,
before he rises
to the fallout, the feud.
Before
…the infant blinks.
 
Before her limbs unfurl
and she reaches
for the reassuring touch,
substantiation of the sphere
always exceeding her grasp;
before
…she whimpers
for the absent mother…
 
And perception arrives
as a deluge
of pebbles and stones
then boulders upon the foxhole.
A threadbare sheet the solitary shield.
Echoes 
of violent retching
reach the ear
like a barrage of bullets
in a hollow chamber.
A paper bag crinkles as it opens.
Bony fingers collect hair
that has fallen by handfuls,
placing it inside -
the assemblage of shrapnel.
An emaciated figure paces,
in endless circles
around a stranger’s table
in a stranger’s home
…and moments
are gone…
 
She winces, wheezes;
puncture wounds resuming their bleed.
Disquieted thoughts briefly quiet
a cacophony onslaught
of sour smells and tastes.
Her leaden feet
settle upon the mound of earth
a father rests beneath.
Toward a kitchen
filled with sacrificial smoke
she begins to shuffle,
as she rises
to a feast –
           of leavened
                          bread.


Author Bio:
Teresa Price resides among the amber waves of rural Kansas. She is a full-time mother and Speech-Language Pathologist by trade. She fell in love with writing somewhere between girlhood and adulthood and has since embarked on a series of gratifying adventures with the “mighty” pen. Her writing often transpires within the solitude of the earliest hours of morning. That seems to be one of the few spaces in her life that is truly her own, where she can focus on her scattered intention as she revisits unbounded notations on various notepads, 'junk mail' envelopes and scraps of paper throughout her home. It is an indescribable serenity when she is finally able to bring cohesion to those persisting thoughts and sentiments. Her work has appeared in online journals including Foliate Oak and Gravel.